Again
by Chloe Silvers
Summary: Summary: Oliver let Chloe down time and again. She could only depend on two things these days- her rationality and her work. So what was her logic doing, constantly giving him more chances? Angsty, Chloe POV. End of Season 8, season 9 focus. Chlollie.
1. Chapter 1

Again

Summary: Oliver let Chloe down time and again. She could only depend on two things these days- her rationality and her work. So what was her logic doing, constantly giving him more chances?

Chapter One

It started with a simple phone call, formal. Jimmy and Davis were dead and she needed somebody to help her get rid Davis' body. She wanted a proper funeral for Jimmy. She figured that Oliver could help, since he had buried Davis' body last time. It seemed fitting.

That was the last time he had answered the phone. He rushed over as fast as he could, a cut still on his cheek and the Green Arrow suit still on. He was quiet on the phone, and even quieter in person. He barely addressed her and couldn't look at Jimmy's body. He grabbed Davis and rushed out of there. He said that he would be back to clean up the mess on the floor. He never did.

When the rest of the team showed up to pay their respects at Jimmy's funeral, Chloe hadn't asked him where he put the body. She was too terrified that Davis' death wouldn't be real. It had been enough that the beast took Clark, probably killed him. If Davis rose up from the dead again, she had no idea what she would do. She was completely powerless.

She was going to call Jimmy's parents, his little brother. She sat down with her cell phone in hand, trying to think of something to say. She married Jimmy without ever meeting his family. She didn't want this to be the first time she met them, it wasn't right like this.

When she finally summoned up the courage to call Jimmy's family, they weren't home. They arrived in Metropolis a day later in a Queen Industries jet.

She called Oliver, wanting to thank him. The call rang and rang before being forwarded to voicemail. She spoke her gratitude softly and hung up before the tears started to come again.

Chloe went upstairs at the Watchtower, where Jimmy was living, his things still scattered in boxes. It wasn't fair that he was mixed up in all of this. They broke up time and again because she wanted to keep him from being mixed up in this life. It was her fault for marrying him, her fault for him wanting to divorce her, her fault for letting him and Davis be in the same room, her fault for sleeping with him in high school.

She picked up a strip of pictures of the two of them. "Another one for the J-Chlo team", she remembered saying.

She looked off in the distance as she remembered Jimmy's words from later that day. "If I did the things he did, you'd never even talk to me again, and don't deny that."

She put the strip of pictures in her pocket and held her head as another memory rushed to her mind. "Home? We have no home, Chloe. I have put up with years of you taking someone else's side over mine- first Clark, and now Davis? I realize now that you just don't trust me. You never have."

She curled up in a fetal position as the tears spilled over. "Marrying you was the biggest mistake of my life", she remembered him say.

And now that Jimmy was dead, she couldn't argue that fact. She knew Clark's secret, knew that she helped him, but it was just so much more than that. She never trusted him enough to let every detail loose. She always kept her guard up around him, terrified that she would slip up on something and that Clark or Oliver would wind up on the front page of the Daily Planet.

She told herself for years that the lies were an act of love- that she lied to Jimmy and Lois in order to protect them, to keep them away from this life. But Lois was missing and Jimmy was dead. Chloe did this all wrong, and now she couldn't take any of it back.

They were all gone, every single one of them. It had been a long time since she had lived her life for her- she spent years living it to help Clark, and now he was gone too.

What was next for her? The Isis foundation had been trashed a while ago, she could assume that someone had cleaned the place up, but she hadn't spoken to her clients in a while. Many of them were already borderline unstable, without regular appointments with her, they might have felt that she abandoned them. And she couldn't blame them.

The Isis foundation wasn't even her project to begin with. And now, she had destroyed it. The Justice League wasn't her project to begin with either, and she had no idea if she was going to see any of them again. They all hated her now. They must have. Especially Oliver.

Her phone started to ring. Without even looking at the number, she pressed the accept button. "Clark?"

But the phone continued to ring. It wasn't a call, voicemail, or even a text. Just an alarm. That the funeral proceedings were going to start in thirty minutes. She wiped her tears, grabbed her black jacket along with Jimmy's Nikon camera to help her get through this shitty day, and headed out the door.

Chloe knew that there were words being said right now. A man was standing there in front of the coffin, his lips were moving, but she couldn't hear any words coming out. There was a roaring noise in her ears as she looked down at the coffin, trying not to make eye contact with Jimmy's parents.

But she couldn't help but stare at the little boy in front of her. Jimmy's brother. She suddenly felt anger towards Jimmy- this was the first time she was meeting the kid, and she knew that his parents were alcoholics. How could Jimmy leave this cute, adorable kid behind in that environment? Jimmy might have been this boy's only way out from all of the stress and emotional torture.

What was this boy going to do now? She reached in a jacket pocket and wrapped a gloved hand around the camera. She had a feeling that with his parents in their state and Jimmy being gone, the boy would need the camera more than she ever would.

She reached for the strip of photos in her pocket and put it down on the coffin, trying to control the tears. Her and Jimmy, they were happy sometimes. Glimmers of happiness that seemed faded now.

Chloe felt Clark's presence unexpectedly, just like she always had whenever something went wrong. She and Jimmy would break it off sometimes, and she allowed herself to cry for a couple of minutes before getting herself back together and helping Clark with a project of some sort.

She wished that it was the case now, that Clark would come to her with a project or a story. But she looked around, and he was nowhere to be found. She did see Oliver there. Chloe was sure that he was wearing the sunglasses so that nobody would see how troubled he was.

She didn't know if she was losing her mind, but she swore that she saw a single tear fall down his cheek. She looked down before looking over to him again, but it was gone before she could confirm it. Dinah placed a hand on her back and guided her away, Bart standing right next to her. Chloe didn't think that she had ever seen Bart look so serious, or in clothes that didn't resemble his usual jeans and red hoodie. And she couldn't remember the last time she saw Canary's black wig in for such a long period of time.

They donned the suits and disguises for her sake. Chloe didn't have a disguise, never suited up for the job. But she plastered a small smile on her face before approaching Jimmy's brother. That would be her disguise.

"Hey. You must be Jimmy's little brother", she said, trying to be friendly. What was she possibly going to say to him? I'm sorry that my messes stole him from you? I'm sorry that you're going to feel alone now? She couldn't talk to him, or even strike up a friendship with the boy. They were never really introduced, it would be speaking with a stranger.

She reached in her pocket and pulled out the camera. "Well, I think that this belongs to you." She said, placing the camera around his neck. Maybe if the boy had a piece of Jimmy, he wouldn't be alone. "He would have wanted you to have it", she said, trying again to force a smile and strong voice.

"Thanks", the boy mumbled. She didn't expect much else. He had no idea who she was.

"Who knows?" she smiled again "Maybe someday, you'll follow in his footsteps."

As the boy walked away, she wished with all her might that she had given him the one thing that felt so far away for her, even as she looked into the distance in search for it and came up empty- hope.

Bart and Dinah walked with Chloe until they reached her car. She wanted to stay behind, to break down and cry at Jimmy's grave, to apologize to Oliver who had stayed. They walked the entire way in silence. Bart hadn't cracked a single joke to cheer her up, and Dinah hadn't rolled her eyes and told him to grow up. There was nothing.

It was better than what Chloe had expected. She wanted them to kill her, to take a life that was meant to be taken. She wanted Bart to be mad at her, for Dinah to tell her that this was all her fault, that if she hadn't split the man from the beast, Jimmy would be alive right now.

She wanted them to tell her that she had ruined the lives of a mother, a father, and a brother. That nobody's lives on the team would be the same again, not even Victor or AC once they heard what happened.

But there was nothing. Dinah got in her car and drove off without offering Chloe a ride home. Where was home, anyway? She had no home, not anymore. Bart turned one last time to look at her. He opened his mouth for a split second before closing it again. He gave her a sad look before speeding away, leaving a streak of black behind before even that disappeared completely.

Chloe had sold her car to pay for the funeral before Oliver could beat her to the punch. The rest of the money going into the funeral came from the paychecks she earned from playing Watchtower anyway.

She had a feeling, a very faint feeling that Oliver wasn't any better off than she was right now. She wanted to apologize to him, needed to apologize to him. She grabbed her cell phone instead of heading back, and called him. But he hadn't picked up.

"You have reached the voice mailbox of..." There was a slight pause before she heard his voice. "Oliver Queen."

She remembered holding charged paddles in her hands. "God, please don't let me kill him", she thought before placing them on Jimmy. Turns out she did after all.

"Oliver, it's Chloe", she said, wiping a tear that she hadn't realized had fallen. "It's all my fault. I'm so sorry."

She disconnected the call before walking back to the Watchtower with no destiny, no family, and no team. She stopped by a nearby coffee shop on her way, hoping that the familiar smell would comfort her. She realized when she saw a man posting Lois Lane's picture under the missing person's section that she was wrong.

She had no idea where Lois was. Chloe had been the one to run away, and now Lois Lane was missing. Lois, the one person who could understand her without knowing the specifics. Lois, the one person who told her time and again that she could do anything. Lois, the one person who told her that all she had ever done was follow in Chloe's footsteps. And now, she was gone too.

When she made it back, she sat on the floor upstairs, looking at the boxes in front of her, not daring to touch anything, and willing herself to stop crying.

She sat there for what felt like hours, just staring at the cardboard until she heard a door open. She rushed over to the stairs when she saw him. "Clark! You're alive!" It was really him, maybe everything now would be okay. It had to be if he was alive.

She ran down the stairs as quickly as her feet would allow and ran over to him "Hey", she said before wrapping her arms around him. She took a deep breath, trying to feel a sense of normality, a sense of calm. "How did you survive the geothermal explosion?" She asked, not really caring for the answer at this point.

Clark grabbed her arms, unwrapped her, and pushed her away a little bit. "Just before Dinah pressed the button, I...I don't know. I got out before the blast, but not fast enough to save anyone else."

She nodded her head. It was all going to be okay now, it was all going to be fine. It had to be.

"Chloe", he said, grabbing her attention again. "I've searched everywhere- there's no sign of Lois."

A tear fell at the mention of the name. She could tell Clark anything, always could. Maybe it was time to talk now. "I saw someone tagging her photo on a missing person's board. And I keep thinking that maybe, you know, maybe I haven't..." she trailed off

"Lost everyone", he finished.

But that was before she knew that Clark was alive. He looked for Lois before on his own, that's why he couldn't find her. If they looked together, then they could definitely find her. They always could before. Lois was as attached to her cell phone as Chloe was, maybe she could track her last call, see what happened there. Maybe even track the phone itself.

Clark walked past her, and looked out in the distance. If there was a chance that he was at the funeral, then he would have looked out too.

"You were there today, Clark, weren't you?" He didn't confirm or deny it. It was a good enough answer for her. "I really needed you", she continued. "Why didn't you come to me?"

"I'm the reason Jimmy's dead." Clark said in a level voice

But he wasn't, she was, she knew it, she could feel it. It wasn't Clark at all, he was fighting Doomsday, he hadn't split Davis. He wasn't here at Watchtower as the human side killed Jimmy. It was all her.

"Oliver was right", Clark continued, turning around. "I put humanity on a pedestal."

Both of the men were right, they were knew of the extremes of humanity. Chloe was the one in the wrong. Why weren't they blaming her?

"It wasn't the Kryptonian beast that killed Jimmy", he said. "It was the human."

"I was standing right here, Clark", she said, walking over to the blood that was still on the ground. She was right there, and she couldn't do anything to stop it. She wasn't fast enough, wasn't smart enough to see it."I know fool well who killed Jimmy."

Clark looked around the Watchtower. "This place, Chloe. Just get rid of it. Just walk away and don't look back."

Like Dinah and Bart were able to do. No, this was all her fault. She had to fix it somehow. That was what she had to do.

For some reason, there was a memory that flew to her mind, a voice that she hadn't heard in a long time. "Isn't that what we all want? A chance to repent?"

She gave Jimmy's brother the camera and Jimmy had given the Watchtower to her. "You don't get it", she told Clark. "Clark, Jimmy is here", she said, walking over to the window. "He's watching over me. He knew me so well, he knew this place would be perfect. Jimmy wanted me to know that no matter where I was in the city, I could look up here and see this beacon. The Watchtower", she said, using both the name she had given the building and the name given to her.

She walked over to Clark. They had work to do, but they had to act fast before the rest of the team lost themselves. "Now look. Dinah, Oliver, and Bart all disappeared. Maybe it's up to us to bring them back home."

"Home?" Clark asked "They don't have a home."

What was he talking about? "I don't like the way that sounds."

"I've always tried to forget I was an alien", he said. "A creature. I've always tried to pretend I was human."

And this planet welcomed him home with open arms. The Kents took him in, he had a good childhood, a good home. Friends and family.

"I was raised to believe that it was my Kryptonian part that was dangerous, Chloe, but I was wrong. It's my human side. It's the side that gets attached, the side that makes decisions based on emotions, that's my enemy. Davis proved that to me."

No, that wasn't true. Looking at him putting humanity on a pedestal pushed her every single day to be a better person, to look for the good in others. That wasn't what went wrong here, it was her splitting Davis. That's all it was. And what kind of helper would she be if she let Clark convince himself into thinking otherwise?

"So because of some psychopath, you're going to cut the rest of us out of your life?" She couldn't let him do that, not today. She needed somebody to still be here, she needed the person that she had destroyed everything in her life for to still be here. To prove that it was all for something good, that it was worth every sacrifice. "Clark, human emotion is what made you the hero you are today."

"They're what's stopping me from being the hero I could be. It's what the world needs now."

She was having trouble wrapping her head around this. "What are you saying?"

There was a silence before he answered. "Clark Kent is dead. Goodbye, Chloe."

She wanted to call out to him, to beg him to stop as he walked away, but her throat started to constrict. There was a sinking feeling in her stomach, and she put her hands there to attempt to calm it down.

The tears were free flowing. She was a sidekick without a superhero. She was lost and alone, and there was a goddamn blood stain on the floor. She walked over the bathroom, still in a daze with everything that had just happened and grabbed some ammonia, a bucket, and a sponge.

She was going to get this fucking blood stain off and purge this place from the smell of blood if it killed her. She kneeled down, and started scrubbing.


	2. Chapter 2

Summary: Oliver let Chloe down time and again. She could only depend on two things these days- her rationality and her work. So what was her logic doing, constantly giving him more chances?

Chapter Two

She woke up on the floor, looking around the Watchtower. She must have passed out because of all of the ammonia. Maybe she should invest in a bed around here.

She let out a bitter laugh as she got up. With what money? Isis was a non-profit organization that was only able to get the necessities because it was Lana's first. And the only paycheck that she had otherwise came from Oliver, and she had no idea where he was. She grabbed her coat and bag before heading towards the double doors.

"I'm coming back", she said out loud. "I'm not going to abandon this place." Not like Clark had.

She walked through the threshold, just as Clark did, taking a deep, calming breath. She had no idea how she was going to afford to keep this place, or how she was going to afford rent at the Talon.

She walked to the Isis Foundation, unlocked the front door, and saw that someone had cleaned up a little bit. There was paperwork all over the desk, but that was better than on the floor. And she saw that the top of a file cabinet had been destroyed. She approached the file cabinet and ran her fingers over the damage. Clark probably smashed it in anger.

Or maybe he hadn't. He was giving up on human emotion. Cutting back. Giving up humanity for lent. She unlocked a drawer at her desk and pulled out a remote before pressing the button that would separate the bookcase. She stepped forward and saw the screens. Impulse was offline. Arrow was offline. Canary was offline. But Cyborg and Aquaman were still there.

She could explain what happened, maybe she could get the two of them over here. 3/4 of the world was made up of water- AC could help track down the rest of the team once Victor helped her to get a steady location. She could fix things. Repent. It would be okay, all she had to do was explain herself somehow.

She slipped on her earpiece, tapped the button on the side and said "Watchtower, online."

The female computerized voice echoed throughout the room. "Cyborg, offline. Aquaman, offline."

"Wait!" She cried out. "I can fix this, I promise!"

But there was no answer. They were avoiding her now too. She ripped off the earpiece and slammed it down on the table.

Didn't anybody want her at all anymore?

She closed the bookcase up and opened up another room, the room that she used when Brainiac was infecting her and she was starting to forget everybody. She sat herself down, and stared at the pictures around her, the pages of information.

She remembered Clark taking her over to the barn, trying to jump start her memory when she was forgetting him too.

"No, Clark, please, don't leave me", she begged. But he left that day, and left her again.

She was right that day when she told him that because of him, she was able to make a difference in the world. And she wouldn't have traded that for anything. But just for a second, she wished that she could forget again. That she could forget all of them, just to mask the pain.

She stared at Jimmy's picture for a couple of minutes. The innocent smile. She had a love/hate relationship with that smile. She loved that after everything that she had seen over the years, such innocence still existed in the world. And at the same time, she hated the fact that he was so oblivious to everything dark that was happening right in front of him.

She looked at the face next to Jimmy's. Oliver. He had a certain amount of innocence on his face too, but a person really had to look for it. She closed her eyes. She destroyed that innocence.

He found Davis at the Talon, found Jimmy trying to steal from the cash register. All he was trying to do was help and in the next moment, he was tied up in the basement.

Chloe, stay away. She remembered hearing the voice in the distance while she was on the phone with Davis. But it was Oliver that should have stayed away. He was already blaming himself for killing Lex. And Chloe, she hadn't helped when she found out.

One more death's not going to make a difference.

He probably hated himself for saying that now. Because even though he was talking about Toyman at the time, Oliver probably knew that Jimmy was just another casualty. They had casualties before, 33.1 victims that were dead before they could get to them, people that they couldn't save. And the whole team mourned for them too, but only for a while.

Oliver would take them all out to a bar sometimes when it got really bad. They'd throw back a shot or two, nothing to get them completely wasted, just enough to relax a little bit.

Chloe had the feeling that Oliver was drunk right now- that he was trying to relax, and failing at it. Maybe Dinah was downing a shot somewhere too, maybe Bart was so drunk that he couldn't run in a straight line. Sometimes when the kid tried to speed around intoxicated, he'd trip over himself and fall down. They all laughed before offering a hand and picking him back up.

But she wasn't there to help Bart get back up. And there was nobody around to offer her a hand. Her friends and family were just pictures surrounding her now. The smiles looked fake, too happy for the occasion. Jimmy didn't exist anymore. She looked up at a wall and saw another picture- Davis.

She got up and ripped the picture off of the wall. He was the source of all of this trouble, she never should have befriended him. It was all based on nothing anyway.

She thought that it was odd when she first met Davis. He looked at her and said that she was hard to miss. She should have known right then and there that there was something wrong with him, with the scenario.

She wasn't hard to miss. Nobody saw her and thought that she was attractive right away. It took Jimmy a week or two of talking and working together during the summer internship before he called her beautiful. She was so surprised that she slept with his by the end of the week.

She was best friends with Clark for years, and he rarely viewed her as attractive without it being her primary goal, without her working on it for hours. The day she met Davis, she was trying to help a meteor infected girl with smoke in her lungs from a fire. It wasn't a special occasion at all, she didn't think she looked special. But Davis told her that she was hard to miss.

If that was true, then why was everybody so quick to leave?

She looked at the picture in her hand one last time before remembering Davis stabbing Jimmy with a pole. She ripped the page in a million pieces before throwing the pieces on the floor, watching them fly around her like confetti.

When did you become one of the bad guys, huh?

She thought that she was doing the right thing, that she was protecting Clark. She thought that if she could prevent Davis from changing, then she could protect Clark and he wouldn't have to kill anybody.

But she had killed for Clark before. And Oliver did too. Sebastian Kane. She still remembered his eyes flashing green before his brain finally overloaded with information and he died. She told herself time and again that it was Brainiac who killed him. That she had nothing to do with it.

But Oliver was right. It was all to protect Clark. That's all it was. And the same applied to keeping Davis the basement. And Clark couldn't even be bothered to stick around. Oliver put her on a pedestal, and Chloe put Clark on a pedestal.

Both of them were wrong. They never should have killed the people that they did, but they couldn't be held accountable for that either. And Oliver needed to know that.

She took out her cell phone and dialed Oliver's number.

"You have reached the voice mailbox of...Oliver Queen."

"Oliver, it's Chloe. I want you to know that Lex wasn't your fault, and neither was Jimmy."

Jimmy died because of her and Clark. But she couldn't say it out loud, not yet. She cleared her throat before continuing. "Clark left, and Lois is missing. I don't know where to go from here, but I'm still not giving up on the team, even if none of you want me on it."

She hung up the phone, and walked out of the Isis Foundation. Her back was hurting because of the hard floor of the Watchtower. She wanted to lie down on a bed somewhere, and the only way she could get that was in Smallville.

She walked to the train station and purchased a ticket before getting a cup of coffee that she probably couldn't afford to buy anymore. Maybe she would bring the coffee pot at the apartment over to the Watchtower and get coffee downstairs at the Talon for free.

She had a feeling that instead of sticking around at the Isis Foundation that she was going to be spending a lot of time at the Watchtower. It was either that or crying every day in the room with the pictures. And she was getting tired of crying all day every day.

She waited for the train to come, feeling some odd form of excitement at waiting for its arrival. It was like she suddenly half expected someone to magically appear once the doors opened. That Lois would come walking out of the train and call her crazy for taking the train here, that Lois brought a car. She would probably laugh at Lois for criticizing her if she found her on the train herself.

She didn't know who else she could possibly expect to appear at the doors. Clark and Bart sped around without a single care in the world for public transportation, Dinah had her own car, AC preferred water, Victor drove and walked around for the sheer hell of it, and Oliver Queen probably wouldn't be caught dead. He'd probably take a limo or a fancy sports car that cost more than she could possibly imagine.

She used to take the train with her dad sometimes. Dad liked watching as the train sped past everything, only pausing for the stops. He hated stopping at the stop signs when nobody else was there. He complained about it daily when they lived in Smallville.

She wished that she could call him, but the truth was that she avoided speaking to her father, had since the day she was fired from her job at the Daily Planet. It had been her dream job, something that her father had seen her work at for years.

Back in high school, her father knew everything. He held her when Clark left her there at the dance floor, held her when she mentally kicked herself for turning down Lionel's offer to work at the Daily Planet in exchange for information on Clark when she caught him with Lana. Her dad never hated her for the decisions that she made, even if he couldn't understand him. She felt his disapproval when she accepted Lionel's offer, but he packed up her things, went with her to Metropolis, and didn't say a single discouraging word.

That wasn't to say that they never fought. They fought sometimes, when things got rough. When she spent an hour too much at the Torch trying to find Clark answers. Even though he had tried his best as a single father to raise her, and she loved him every day for it, she never told him the truth about Clark.

Losing her job at the Daily Planet, she knew that her father would say something about that. And he would be furious if she told him that she wasn't going to fight Lex on it. He would be even more disappointed in her when she decided to stay away from journalism. Lois got her an interview after her birthday to try and get her job back. She knew that her dad would be confused if he found out that she cancelled the interview and took the job at Watchtower instead.

These were all secrets that he didn't know, secrets that she couldn't tell anyone. The truth of the matter was that she loved the secrets. She craved them, wanted to be able to keep more of them. Because it was almost like her and Clark had a secret language, talking about Kryptonians and powers, meta-humans and meteor infected. And it was like she had a secret family with the League, a secret friendship with a billionaire. She walked around the city acting as if Oliver Queen were just another billionaire, that he didn't work with her to make the better place every day.

The secrets made her feel special, it made her feel wanted and appreciated, that she knew something that nobody else did. She ran around for years knowing Clark's secret, encouraging him to tell Lana the truth, but almost glad that nobody else was let in on the secret.

She was loyal to Clark, said that she would die before betraying his secret. And it was true. But as the train sped past the world, she realized that the secrets had betrayed her.

She was locked up in a cage of secrets, and because of that, nobody in the world could get close enough to touch her. She was alone now.

She pulled open the door of the Talon and the barista greeted her with a smile and a cup of her favorite. She mumbled her thanks and headed upstairs, taking a sip before opening the door.

They threw things around the place all of the time. She never really thought about it before, but now that she saw Lois' things everywhere and no Lois, she was starting to reconsider.

There were messages on the answering machine, but she didn't want to think about them right now. She saw Lois' clothes on the floor, and didn't want to start thinking that maybe she needed to change the greeting if it was just going to be her. Lois was on a missing person's board, and Chloe was the only one left to find her. She didn't have super powers or even the normal type of power. She could be anywhere, and with no car, there was a limit to Chloe's transportation. And now, there was no one left to help her.

She didn't want to think about the possibility that Lois was dead somewhere, that maybe she needed to plan another funeral. Because if she had to plan another funeral, she wouldn't survive it. This one would be her fault too- Lois went snooping around because Chloe ran off with Davis.

The apartment smelled like Lois. Her stuff was everywhere, and the scent was doing a number on Chloe, suffocating her with the possibility that she lost someone else, and comforting her at the same time with the feeling that a part of Lois was still here, that she could come back.

Chloe rested her bag on the floor, tossed her keys on a table, and took off her heels before bringing the cup of coffee that she was holding over to Lois bed, sitting down on it.

She should have told Lois the truth on the day of her wedding instead of lying to her. Chloe was just so happy with the possibility of having a binding sense of forever with another human being, with the thought that someone actually wanted to have her forever that she told Lois that Jimmy was the one. That when Lois found her person, she would know right away.

She didn't tell Lois that she started regretting her decision the second Davis started calling her. That Davis didn't want her to marry the wrong man. That truth didn't even involve any earth-shattering secrets, not really. But she still stayed quiet, Lois went about her business threatening the lives of strangers if Chloe's big day was ruined.

Lois had guys falling for her all the time, she was good at saying no when she needed to. If Chloe had just said something to her, then there never would have been a problem. She had led on Davis without even knowing that she was doing it, was protecting Clark the entire time, but Davis thought that she was in love with him. She ran from everyone in order to protect them all, but Davis thought that they were running off together to be with each other. If Chloe had told Lois what was going on, she could have coached her through it.

Is this the part where you belt out the soprano's aria and drive a dagger into your corset?

She would give anything to hear Oliver say that in front of her right now. She knew now exactly what he would have said if Lois hadn't interrupted their conversation that day. He would have told her that her feeling like everybody else around her was busy conquering the world was her own damn fault. That he offered her a permanent spot on the team as Watchtower years ago when they first met and that she decided not to do it because Clark needed her to stick around in Metropolis and she couldn't disappear without explaining to Lois, which she couldn't do.

She wished that she had continued to live a boring life, chatting with meteor infected teenagers, trying to stop them from becoming psycho killers, and staying far away from Davis Bloome. And that she had joined up the team after Davis was gone. Maybe she would have something to look forward to right now. People to talk to, things to do.

It wasn't like she could track down still operational 33.1 facilities herself and break into them. She needed a team in order to do that. She needed Oliver's team to do that, and they were all gone.

But Oliver wasn't. At least, he never could be completely gone- he was the only billionaire in the group. If Chloe could go on Youtube and find video clips of Ben Affleck walking from place to place, then why couldn't she find something like that of Oliver?

She could tap into Metropolis traffic cameras and see where he was, find him, by some miracle convince him to work again, and bring back the rest of the team. She walked over to her laptop bag and pulled the computer out, lifting open the cover and booting up the system.

If Clark wasn't going to come around with a new project in her time of need, then she would make her own. But she was going to have to do a hell of a lot better than this. She needed more than just a laptop to work with.

She was going to need her own database of information, something created solely by her that she could rely on, because the people in her life just weren't going to fucking cut it anymore. It was going to have to be bigger than what she was used to, a lot bigger. And everything needed to be in one area.

The Isis Foundation wasn't going to cut it anymore, she was tired to continuing other people's projects. This project was all her own, and she knew exactly where she was going to move all of Isis's computers- the Watchtower.

She didn't have a car, company or otherwise. And she didn't have the money to hire a truck full of strong men who knew the importance of confidentiality so that she could have the computers moved from place to place like she would if Oliver stuck around. And she didn't have any super-strong, super-fast guys hanging around either. She would move everything over herself, and not give a shit if she looked ridiculous running around the city with computers in her hands.

She was going to have to stock up on nine-volt batteries for her taser. Because if someone was going to attack her in the city, she didn't have anyone left to call out to.


	3. Chapter 3

Summary: Oliver let Chloe down time and again. She could only depend on two things these days- her rationality and her work. So what was her logic doing, constantly giving him more chances?

Chapter Three

Her one friend in the entire universe was now the barista working at the little coffee shop located right near the Watchtower, and she had no idea what his name was. For the first time in her life, she was glad that he was a cute little old man, and not some guy her age that she wasted her life for.

The barista didn't know anything about her, but had the magical ability to know when she was going to arrive. The man always had a hot cup and a smile waiting just for her at the counter. After the third day, he refused to accept her money, instead stopping her to chat about the weather, telling her that he hoped she was well. She never answered that she hoped she was too, or that she would be one of these days.

She remembered Clark showing up sometimes with lunch or coffee. But they always had some meaning behind them, paired with an apologetic smile and asking her to do something for her.

He came with lunch every day for two weeks after he found out that Lana had been sleeping with his evil Kryptonian counterpart without even knowing about it. It was because he needed to get out of Smallville and away from his own thoughts. Never because he genuinely wanted to see her.

That was one of the things that she missed about Lois every second of the day. Lois would drive for hours back when Chloe was in high school just to visit her favorite cousin. She was Lois' first call when she got the job at the Inquisitor and then the Planet. The most exciting thing about Chloe's job at the Planet was that sometimes she would get to chase down scoops with Lois, stake out some night outside of the home of some dirty political official with a thermos of coffee and baked goods- blueberry muffins for Chloe, maple donuts for Lois. The Chlo-Lo team, just chatting the night away and trying to expose a scandal.

Sometimes, Chloe thought that Clark was a kind of infection. She thought for years that Clark was just the right kind of virus for her, that he fueled her with stories and she helped him change the world. Together, they were a type of team too.

But he also tortured Lana for years. Unintentionally, of course. The two of them tortured each other for years. Either his memory would be wiped, he would be infected with red meteor rock, or if he drank a particularly fresh glass of orange juice that day, he would try and pursue a relationship with Lana one day before something going tragically wrong and him rethinking it the next.

And now, he had gotten to Lois. Chloe had no idea what happened, but she knew that Lois was talking to the Clark's blurring counterpart. Chloe would put what little money she had left into betting that whatever happened with Lois, Clark had something to do with it. She called the police every day, but nothing had ever happened. And right now, there was nothing that she could do.

She had three of Isis' computers over at the Watchtower so far, and she hoped to get a couple of more upstairs later. The only problem with everything was that she had no money, no power. And no air conditioning. It was ninety degrees outside, and felt even hotter upstairs where she sometimes passed out on top a blanket and pillow that she brought from the Talon.

She must have brought hundreds of candles to the Watchtower, and she lit them all every night when it got too dark for her own comfort. But there were ten unlit candles sitting on a small table that she let her eyes drift off to once in a while when she was starting to feel comfortable here. There was one for each of them, for every light that had gone out in her life recently. One for her mother, father, Clark, Oliver, Lois, Jimmy, Bart, Victor, AC, and Dinah.

She knew that even in the best case scenario, some of the candles would never be lit. She knew that the candles were just making her more miserable, were stopping her from moving on. But she also knew that she couldn't move on without correcting the past as much as she could.

She couldn't stay in the Talon, she knew that much for sure. When she realized that there was no power in the Watchtower, she thought that it was only logical to stick around in the Talon, but it didn't do her any good. There wasn't a single floor that she could stay on for longer than five minutes without needing to escape as soon as possible.

The main floor reminded her of the old days, when she would hang out with Lana, Pete, and Clark, sipping on coffee and talking about life, or working on projects as a group. She didn't mind being there so much before because Clark was always around. He was still the one element of the old team that kept everything going.

"Maybe I haven't lost everyone", she told him. Instead of taking her into his arms and saying that he was still there, that he wasn't going anywhere and that they would fix the shit that was now her life, he just made her statement come true.

The apartment upstairs reminded her more of Lois than anything else, her clothes still scattered everywhere. Chloe didn't have the heart to move a single thing. So she kept everything exactly the same, with very...brave lingerie thrown around everywhere and a closet filled with Lo's disguises.

Chloe went downstairs in the basement to get some candles from there, maybe some light bulbs or batteries, but she remembered every moment that she stayed down in the basement with Davis, and had to rush back upstairs almost immediately to vomit in the employee bathroom.

The manager understood, saying that he saw Lois' picture in a missing person's poster as well. She knew the man was trying to be soothing, but the thought of something or someone hurting Lois wherever she was made her duck back into the bathroom and puke again.

She wasn't doing so well at the Talon, and was grateful that even though Jimmy was killed at the Watchtower, she didn't feel physically ill there. She was just wondering why that was the case, was waiting for the day to come where she started falling apart at the Watchtower as well. Where would she go then?

Home? We have no home, Chloe.

She walked over to the Watchtower now, a now empty cup of coffee in hand and bent down, a curious look on her face as she saw a pile of papers near the front door. She unlocked the door and stepped into the elevator, hitting the button for the top level and eyeing the lettering curiously. Mrs. Olsen.

She never took Jimmy's last name, and had never seen it in writing before. They were divorced when Jimmy died, it was a pretty nasty divorce too.

Jimmy never discussed the idea of marriage with her when they were dating, it never even came up until he randomly bent down on one knee with a ring from a gumball machine.

Maybe she should have told him that she was proud of her last name, that it was the name she put on the bylines for years. She remembered signing off letters from the editor at the Talon. Your editor, Chloe Sullivan. She was proud of her name, it was hers. She lived to define her name, to make it something.

Maybe she was still living in the past, the good old days in the bull-pen, even though she knew that wasn't her life anymore. But she knew that working hard to make the name Chloe Sullivan something that was remembered would only be wasted if her last name was different.

It wasn't that she didn't like Jimmy, she liked him. She agreed to marriage eventually, but they had just never discussed it when they were dating. Never talked about kids, but she was probably supposed to agree with that eventually as well. Even though the world was constantly on the brink of exploding every other week. But Jimmy never knew any of that. He didn't know about Milton Fine, Brainiac, Jor-El or Kryptonite.

Hell, when she showed Jimmy her healing abilities, he never feared for her safety or thought that her abilities were dangerous at all. Just thought that she was cool. Nifty. He never wondered how exactly she got the abilities, how she knew her way around them. Never wondered what triggered her abilities.

Did Jimmy ever know that she was locked up somewhere in Montana because of what she could do with her mind? Maybe. But he never knew that it was because she was being taken over by Brainiac. When Brainiac made her forget who Jimmy was, that he even existed, what did he think was happening? That she was going crazy and that she suddenly snapped out of it when her memory came back?

Maybe that was what she liked about Jimmy, the fact that he never really asked too many questions. He wondered if Lana was going to be invited to the wedding, but never really asked why Oliver was there. She doubted that he even noticed Bart as he sped over to the top of the stairs at the Barn during the ceremony, looking down and mock slow-clapping in his red hoodie and jeans as Chloe said her vows.

Jimmy didn't know that Oliver had brought Lana over for the reception. Chloe still had no idea how he managed to find her and pull that off, but he did.

Chloe tossed out the empty Styrofoam cup and opened the letter carefully, wondering if the letter was meant for Jimmy's mother. It was a life insurance company, offering Chloe their condolences and a check for $100,000. She decided in that moment that she would only use it to pay for her rent at the Talon and not for anything else that Jimmy didn't know about.

She looked around and sighed. She would have loved to use it to get this place going, but she had a feeling that it was going to take more than $100,000. It needed a billionaire's touch in order to get it where she wanted it. And she was all out of those.

Oliver never stayed in one place for very long, that was the tricky part. He kept bar-hopping, and there were only so many bars that Chloe was willing to go to before getting tired of it all. She wanted so badly to just down a shot and forget about everybody, but she had no money for that kind of lifestyle.

Besides, the lives of those who need to repent for their sins was never easy. There wasn't a simple solution for her like downing a shot. Or three. She didn't blame Oliver for Jimmy's death. He had done nothing wrong.

She called him once after searching through bars until five in the morning, crying and begging him to come back. But that was all through a voicemail. He never picked up and never called back.

Oliver was ignoring her on purpose, and she deserved it.

But it didn't stop her from calling, didn't stop her from searching every bar in and out, sticking out because she wasn't dressed glamorously like the rest of the women there.

She wondered sometimes if she was supposed to be wearing all black, like a traditional widow mourning over the death of her husband. And then she realized that she was divorced when Jimmy died.

She didn't act like a typical angry ex-wife. She was angry, there was no doubt about it, but she wasn't angry at Jimmy. She was angry at the world for doing this to her when all she done over the years was try to keep it a safe place.

She was angry at Clark for leaving when she had done nothing wrong except for being born a human. She had always done what was asked of her. She just didn't want Clark to treat the Phantom Zone as his own escape route.

She understood that Clark didn't want to kill, that he didn't want to damage his soul. Clark had been stuck in the Phantom Zone a couple of times over the years, he should have known the kind of hell that he would be subjecting Davis too. Death was a gift in comparison to that place.

He wanted to split the human from the beast, and Chloe did exactly what he asked. And now it was up to her to do it again, let Clark go. She wanted to steal the key to the Fortress of Solitude and drag Clark back, kicking and screaming. But she had to respect his wishes, like she always did. Hope that he had some sort of plan, and that he knew what he was doing. It was just hard.

She was angry at Oliver for avoiding her when all she was trying to do was tell him that all of this wasn't his fault. She wanted to tell him that he was trying to do the right thing with Davis, and that killing Lex was the right call. Lex had done so much harm, and she knew the day she discovered the truth about the explosion that there was a part of her that was glad that someone was finally able to take Lex down.

Lex claimed to be turning a new leaf over so many times. Chloe wasn't there to support him marrying Helen Bryce, but she was there when he married Lana, even though she knew that it was all a mistake. Lex claimed to turn over a new leaf then too.

In fact, every time that Lex almost died, he claimed that the universe was giving him a new beginning and that he wouldn't screw up this time. It never lasted, Chloe knew that. She helped to shut down facilities for years, but all that did was keep the evil of the Luthors at bay.

Oliver knew that it wouldn't stop, and was able to do something that Clark couldn't. Oliver created a team of people that met Clark first. She wished that Clark had joined the team at some point, but he never did.

Bart told her that he knew what had happened between Oliver and Lex, that Clark said that he wasn't one of the team anymore. Bart also told her that even though murder may not have been the best way of doing things, he knew that Oliver gave him a life again, that he had worked closer with Oliver over the past couple of years than he ever had with Clark.

At the end of the day, the team answered to Oliver, not Clark. Maybe it was time that she followed suit. After all, she was part of the team too, right?

Chloe walked out of the Watchtower and into the Clock Tower. She left a message with Oliver's assistant at Queen Industries as she waited for the elevator. She took the ride up and entered the code before the doors opened and she could pull open the gate and step inside.

"Oliver?" She called out, walking around the penthouse in hopes of finding him somewhere

"It's Chloe. I know you don't want to talk to me right now, but please just listen to me for five minutes. That's all I'm asking for", she continued, walking around some more.

Oliver was nowhere to be found. She hoped that he wasn't hiding in a closet or something. Was it really that bad?

She looked up at the ceiling where she knew the tiles could move and a computer could descend.

She used to have access to the computers here. She used to be able to run her thumb over the scanner underneath his desk, take out the remote, and access the computer systems he had here. She wondered if that was still the case, or if she had been completely blocked out. She wouldn't blame him if she couldn't get in.

She sat down at his chair. What would happen if she couldn't get in? Would alarms blare? Would Oliver be sent a message saying that someone had tried to break in?

He would probably run right over, an angry look on his face, trying to find out what was going on without showing any sense of fear over a random stranger trying to find out his secret.

If she were a random stranger, he would probably call the Metropolis PD. They would probably laugh at her name, ask if she was the silly little girl looking for her cousin and calling nonstop every day. Maybe even call her crazy before tossing her in jail overnight.

But if the system locked Chloe out and sent out a message to Oliver, he would be here. She could apologize, try and get him to come back. And in that second, the one thing that she wanted in the world was to be locked out of the system that she had spent accessing and updating for years.

She swiped her thumb over the scanner, and waited for a reaction before the tiles in the ceiling moved and a computer descended from above. She wasn't locked out after all. Oliver hadn't even bothered to lock her out before leaving everything.

Chloe reached into her bag and pulled out the trusty back-up hard drive that she used to collect data from Isis and her laptop. She did it to create her database, figured that having everything in one place was a good start.

She plugged the computer into a USB port she found on the side of the monitor, and made a copy of every single file on the computer, hoping that something in there could help her track down everybody.

She walked around the penthouse, trying to find some evidence of Oliver being here in the past couple of days while she waited for everything to copy over. His bed hadn't been slept in, there were countless messages on his answering machine, and his gym equipment was getting a little dusty.

She opened pulled open dresser drawers, and saw that everything was clean. His clothes were neatly folded in stacks. She shut the drawers and walked over to a closet, pulling open a door and walking inside. Shoes, shirts, ties, pants, everything was exactly the way that it was supposed to be. It looked like either someone had been paid to put everything away or Oliver hadn't been here in ages.

She looked over at the belts and saw something that gave her a little spark of hope that Oliver could still be around- a rusted old belt. It was his fathers, and Oliver usually didn't like leaving for trips, business or otherwise, without it.

He brought it with him whenever he could, even if he wasn't wearing it.

Chloe knew that even if she tried to break into the Arrow room, it wouldn't work well for her. There was shatterproof glass now, and the only way to access it was through not only a numeric combination but a fingerprint and retina scan as well.

It didn't curb her curiosity, though. She hadn't heard anything in the papers or seen him walking around, but she wanted to know if he was still patrolling. If he stopped by to just look at the suit at all.

She rubbed her thumb against the belt buckle in her hand gently. If he still brought this around with him, then he would be back for the belt eventually, even if it meant that he was going back to Star City to never come back here again.

She stashed the buckle in her bag as the computer beeped. She walked out of the closet and shut the door before heading over to the computer. A window popped up, stating that every file had successfully copied over to her hard-drive. She put down her bag before attacking the keyboard, erasing all history of her actions.

"This isn't the first time I've done something like this", she muttered to herself as she did years ago in the Daily Planet before getting acquainted with Dinah Lance for the first time.

Come on, isn't this when you're supposed to swoop in and save me?

When she was finished, she disconnected the device, placed it gently in her bag next to the belt, and put the computer back up in the ceiling where she found it before heading out the door.

She remembered Lana coming to her years ago, asking if she knew of any way to put a GPS tracker or camera on Lex to keep an eye on him. Lana was hysterical that day, and had only just found out that Lex had used her body as an experiment to create the perfect specimen.

Lana no longer trusted her husband, and Chloe realized the seriousness of the situation. So she promised her friend that she would come up with something discreet. Lana never mentioned the need for it again, but Chloe had a pretty good idea with how to incorporate both inside of the belt buckle here. This was the only way that she could keep an eye on him, be able to follow him. Stop him if he pushed things too far.

She knew that Oliver would be angry when he found out. She only hoped that he would be angry enough with her for toying with his father's belt to find her and confront her face to face. Chloe wanted him mad. Mad enough to turn his life around or try to attack her. Right now, she wasn't picky with which one he chose.

No matter what happened, Oliver would always make it out okay in the end. That was just the kind of person that he was. He was trapped in a deserted island for an eon, and he still made it out of there. Chloe didn't think that she was the same.

She killed Jimmy. She knew it deep in her soul. She was no better than Lionel Luthor for killing Oliver's parents. No better than Lex for holding people in 33.1. Lex and Lionel died in the end in order to pay for their sins. If Oliver wouldn't come back by her crying, pleading request, if he wouldn't come back to help her put things right, then there was only one other way for Chloe to fix things.

Oliver Queen was going to have to kill her.


	4. Chapter 4

Summary: Oliver let Chloe down time and again. She could only depend on two things these days- her rationality and her work. So what was her logic doing, constantly giving him more chances?

Chapter Four

She stood alone at the Barn, letting out a sigh. She couldn't keep running back over here in case Clark changed his mind about humanity and blurred in for a quick visit over to Smallville.

Chloe had to remind herself that she didn't have the ability to super-speed in and out. Buses to the area around the Barn were exhausting, constantly taking trains back and forth were expensive, and she didn't have a lot of time on her hands.

She planted the tracker and camera on Oliver's belt and slipped it back in his closet in no time. She hadn't bumped into him, and Watchtower hadn't picked up on any motion or activity yet, but she hoped that it would only take a little bit of time.

The little trips to the Barn just made her more disappointed, dug the knife a little bit deeper. But for some reason, she couldn't stop visiting in case Clark she walked in the find Clark lifting up a bale of hay, just like he used to.

She had two choices here- either invent some sort of teleportation device to bring her back and forth, which would probably cause a lot of problems and be incredibly time consuming, or install cameras in the Barn so that she could invest the time into coming here instead of wasting precious time she could probably use to track down Lois. Maybe even track down the team.

She descended from the staircase and walked out the door. A bus wasn't coming for another thirty minutes. She'd rather walk it to the train station and get to the Watchtower instead of sitting around the Talon, waiting for Lois to walk through the door.

Lois was gone, and so was Clark. She needed to keep reminding herself of that. Just like she needed to remind herself that Clark left and Lois was missing. They were not the same. She could look for Lois, but she had to let Clark go and do whatever it was that he was doing right now.

But that didn't mean that she had to stop trying to protect him. She remembered speaking to Clark on the phone while she was running away.

"Look, everything that I have ever done, right or wrong, I did for you." And she needed to do it one last time, by giving Clark some sort of background story.

She took out her cell phone while walking to the train station and scrolled through her contacts before she called somebody that she hadn't spoken to in a long time.

"Hi, Mrs. Kent."

"Hi, Chloe", Martha answered, surprised. "Is everything okay?"

She wanted to cry and say that everything was the farthest from okay right now, but she couldn't. She needed to keep her head on straight and get this job done. "Yeah, everything's fine. Clark left Smallville."

She heard Martha walking before answering in a soft voice. "Meteor rock?"

"No", she said, swallowing the lump that had suddenly formed in the back of her throat. "Free will. I think he decided to start his Kryptonian training, says that his human side is what makes him weak and prevents him from being the hero that he could be."

"That doesn't sound like him. Did something happen?"

"You know Clark's life, Mrs. Kent. Something big always happens. It's fine, he'll figure it out, we both will." Chloe tried to sound as optimistic as possible to mask the pain. "I'm just calling to let you know that if anybody asks, the background story is that he's visiting relatives."

"Chloe, are you sure-" Martha got cut off as Chloe heard a crowd of people screaming, "Senator Kent! Senator Kent!"

"Yeah, everything's fine. I'll let you go. Duty calls!", she finished quickly before hanging up the phone

Duty calls.

She was mad at everyone right now, but she wouldn't be mad at Martha Kent. Chloe refused to. She took a deep breath and reasoned to herself that other than checking in to see what was going on, she hadn't had much interaction with the woman since she left for the nation's capital.

Martha called Chloe sometimes once in a while because she was worried about Clark. That was it. And Chloe had only called to create a background story for him in case someone started snooping around, wondering why he hadn't shown up for work in a while. She hadn't called to catch up or to whine to Martha about how unfair life had been. She called for a purpose, for work. Now, the task was done. That was it.

She got on a train to Metropolis and stopped by the Daily Planet on her way to the Watchtower, putting on a brave face in case she bumped into Tess Mercer.

Chloe realized that it had been a while since the woman had made any appearances at all, and that couldn't be a good sign. Chloe had been poring over every possible local newspaper in case a swarm of paparazzi picked up on Oliver, but Tess hadn't been anywhere in the papers either.

Tess always put on a responsible, ethical face in the papers, just like Lex used to. She created charity events, addressed shareholders, was seen walking around the Planet and the Luthorcorp building multiple times. Pictures of the woman walking used to be easily spotted in fashion and business magazines, descriptions of her clothing listed.

Chloe always rolled her eyes at the attention that celebrities got sometimes. That was the stereotype that she lived under as an investigative reporter- everybody always assumed that she was a tabloid journalist or a gossip columnist. The public didn't realize that she was out to actually report the news, to expose it.

But like Oliver, Tess had mysteriously disappeared from the papers. Davis told her while they were on the run that Tess had once planted a bomb in his car and activated it while on the phone with him after confirming that he was inside. Tess did it to prove her suspicions, and it worked.

To go from being so actively involved in everything to not even having a fashion magazine broadcasting her Chanel coats was suspicious, and Chloe would look into that later, but Tess wasn't in the building, then that could only be a good thing.

She tried her best to be in and out of there as quickly as possible. No eyes wandering around the bullpen, trying to remember when she used to run around the place. No trying to find people who still worked there from when she used to, no stopping for friendly chats. Just in and out, setting up a system where Clark and Lois would be emailed their assignments with some person who worked there. That was it.

She wanted to block out the memories of this place. There was nothing here for her anymore. It wasn't even necessary to take the elevator up and down. Someone might assume that she worked here. She took the stairs and rushed out of the door, stopping only after she got a distance away from the building before catching her breath.

No emotions. No emotions. No tears. There was nothing. Nothing at all. If there were no emotions, then there was nothing to hurt her.

***Flash***

"And what I've lost...I've lost so much", Chloe said to Jimmy. "The only thing I really miss is you."

***Flash***

"Actually, you know, now that we're in the same biz? I probably shouldn't be leaking my story", Lois said hesitantly.

"I can't believe you don't trust me!" Chloe replied, pretending to be offended.

"It's not all of you I don't trust, just one little side of you", Lois answered.

"Lois, I'm not going to scoop your story. But watching you bumble through our database is like watching Clark try and dance. Come on, Lois. Tell me what you've got."

Lois hesitated for two seconds before giving in. "Okay", she said excitedly.

***Flash***

"Chloe, this'll mean leaving your own life as a reporter behind. Are you sure you want to say goodbye to that forever?"

***Flash***

"Chloe, you are destined to be a big-shot reporter at the Daily Planet", Lois said to her. "Do you really picture Clark Kent being able to keep up with you?"

***Flash***

"Clark", she called out, stopping him before he sped away from the Daily Planet. She took a deep breath, summoning all of her strength as she walked over to him. "I don't know if I'm ever going to see you again."

She grabbed his face, brought it down to her level, and kissed him deeply.

***Flash***

"Lana did come through", Clark said, walking over to her desk as she typed. "But I'm not about to let Oliver poach the best sidekick in town."

***Flash

"Complicated? Did I do something unusual?" Clark asked

"You had a clean slate to start all over with, and you made all the same choices. Except for one."

"Chloe, I need you to be completely honest with me."

She stepped forward and raised an eyebrow. "Honest, huh?"

He gulped. "What did I do?" He asked, hesitantly.

She looked him right in the eye. "You trusted me."

***Flash***

"You trusted us to protect him!" She screamed out in the Fortress, hoping that she would be heard. "Now, please, Jor-El, I need you to trust me. I love your son. He's in danger and he needs our help!"

***Flash***

"What do you say we clean up this town, partner?" Jimmy asked, smiling brightly, walking up the stairs.

She didn't like hearing Jimmy label meteor infected as freaks. She didn't like using the term anymore, no matter how often she used to use it herself. Because the truth was that now, she was one of them. And if Jimmy was right? If sooner or later, they all snapped? Then she would too eventually. And she didn't think that she wanted to accept that.

***End Flash***

Chloe held her side, her eyes closed, leaning over slightly and breathing heavily. No. There was nothing there anymore. She had to keep reminding herself of that.

There was nobody left. There was no question of maybe anymore. Clark was supposed to start his Kryptonian training years ago. If that was what he was up to these days, then she had no right to stand in the way of that.

If he came back with the ability to fly, then that would really be something. She hoped that would happen for him with all her might. She had to encourage him, just like she always had.

Set the cameras up at the Barn in case he came back needing her help, and then leave it at that. Detached. Remove her own humanity a bit so that she could do something to save Lois from whatever trouble she probably wound up in.

She picked herself back up and started walking over to the Watchtower.

It's what the world needs right now.


	5. Chapter 5

Summary: Oliver let Chloe down time and again. She could only depend on two things these days- her rationality and her work. So what was her logic doing, constantly giving him more chances?

Chapter Five

She started keeping a gun at Watchtower because of the nightmares. Chloe also started to curl her hair every day. It was a mask that she created for herself, a look of bravery that she put on every morning, regardless of where she woke up. Most of the time, she woke up at the Watchtower, working on trying to find Lois, creating her Watchtower database, and ghostwriting stories for both Lois and Clark.

She woke up in her own bed at the Talon sometimes, but couldn't stop having nightmares. Sometimes they replayed Jimmy's death and other times, they replayed the day that she drowned Davis in a tank of liquid kryptonite. But last night was different- last night, she watched Lois being strangled by a shadow. Chloe woke up in a sweat at the Talon, breathing heavily, and wondering why she didn't do anything to save her cousin from dying.

Chloe got out of bed right away and headed over to the Watchtower with her laptop bag. She did another global search for someone with the same biological profile as Lois Lane, but came up completely blank.

And she got the Metropolis PD on the phone, but so far, they were being unhelpful. They had been like this since Lois' picture was posted up on that missing person board 3 weeks ago. She didn't care if the authorities thought that Lois was dead. Chloe wasn't going to stop looking until she found a dead body.

"Lois Lane", she repeated to the woman on the phone as she paced around the top floor. "My cousin has been missing for three weeks."

"Didn't you call yesterday?" the woman asked

Chloe rolled her eyes as she sat down at her laptop. "Yes, I'm the same woman who called yesterday, and the day before that, and pretty much every day for the past few weeks because I have not been getting any answers to my question", she said sternly.

The woman said something, but Chloe wasn't paying attention. Because she had successfully hacked into the computer system there. She wished that she had done this earlier. Would have saved some time.

"You know, don't worry about the second cursor on your screen", she told the voice. "I just hacked into the system because you have been so completely unhelpful that I can't-"

She stopped as she listened to what she thought was a hang up. She pressed the end button. Great.

Suddenly, there was a rattle coming from downstairs. Someone was taking the elevator up, and Chloe hadn't had any visitors in a long time.

She reached across the small table and grabbed the gun, loading it and standing up. She was prepared to shoot whoever the hell it was before they tried to attack her. She was tired of the same old routine, of getting dragged away to some weird place, seeing her life flash before her eyes, and hoping that Clark would speed in at the last second and save her, before he finally did.

Clark wasn't coming anymore. It was just her. And if it came down to someone else's life and her own? She would shoot to kill.

She walked around the top floor until she had a clear shot of the double doors, waiting for a minute before a door flew open and a man walked in. She pointed the gun at the man.

"I wouldn't come any further unless you're interested in an impromptu nose job", she told the guy, holding the gun steady.

The man turned around and put his hands up. She could see him clearly now. It was the doctor that Oliver hired to take care of the team in case something went wrong medically.

"Dr. Hamilton", she acknowledged, surprised.

"If you would be so kind as to lower the nine-millimeter Jericho 941, I prefer Emil."

She lowered the gun and placed it on a nearby table before heading down the stairs. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I've just been haunted by my own share of ghosts lately."

"And the gun?" He asked

"After everything that's happened, being here alone, it's the only way I can sleep." She didn't mention that she wasn't sleeping well, that she hadn't been able to sleep a full night in ages. She was more concerned with what he was doing here.

He was employed by Oliver. Maybe he got her messages and sent him? Maybe Dr. Hamilton came with a warning, because Oliver finally figured out that she had his belt buckle bugged. Maybe Oliver was in trouble?

"Did Ollie send you?" She asked. "I've been calling him non-stop lately." She admitted

"I know", he said, pulling out a cell phone. Oliver's. "You can stop calling", he held it out. "Obviously, he's not going to answer."

None of the above. She looked at the cell phone- there were alerts for every single one of her phone calls and voicemails. He hadn't been ignoring her, he hadn't even cared.

She wasn't even a part of the team anymore to him, was she? She didn't even matter.

Emil was in front of her, now. No emotions, no crying. No feeling disappointed. Not letting any of that show was of the utmost importance right now.

"They're gone, Chloe. All of them."

"They're not gone", she said stubbornly. "Ollie, Dinah, Bart, they just vanished of the grid, but they're not-"

"They don't want to be found", he cut her off. "Jimmy died because they turned on each other, and now they have to live with that guilt."

No, that's not why. Jimmy died because of her. Because she split the human from the beast, and didn't realize that it would have ramifications because she led Davis on unintentionally. Accidentally made him think that they were running away together because they were in love.

Instead of trying to live with the guilt of it all, the team needed to reunite towards something again. Try and make the bonds stronger instead of breaking everyone apart and going separate ways. It was stupid. Illogical.

Clark was training in the Arctic. He was trying to move on. And so was she. It was irrational to do anything else.

"I'm sure that Jimmy's death is haunting Clark every day, but he still does everything he can to make sure that the streets of Metropolis are still protected."

"And he seems to be doing an adequate job without his sidekick."

Right then, Chloe wanted to tell Emil to go to hell. She wished for a split second that she hadn't put the gun down and gone downstairs. She would have shot him between the eyes.

Then again, maybe that was a good thing. Time to be cool and calm. To not take things personally. This is just business. That's all it is.

She heard her phone ringing. At least she knew now that she didn't have to keep hoping that it was Oliver calling her back. Still, it could be something important, so she turned her back on Emil, and ran upstairs, trying to relax as she picked up the phone.

It was the nursing station at Metropolis General Hospital. Lois had been found, and Chloe was listed as the emergency contact.

"Is she alive?" she asked

"Yes, she's going to be fine. She was found among victims in a train accident, but she's going to be fine."

"I'll be there right away", she said immediately before grabbing her coat and bag and hanging up the phone.

"Who was that?" Emil asked curiously

"Don't worry about it", she said, heading down the stairs. "Look, make yourself at home, or don't, I really don't care. But I can do an adequate job of things by myself, thank you. And if that means scouring the globe for people who don't want to be found, then so be it. At least I'm doing something to fix this", she said as she got to the bottom of the stairwell. "If you want to help me, then help me. Otherwise, get out of my way."

She pushed past him and walked out of the double doors, heading straight for the elevators. It wasn't until the doors opened, and she stepped in that a smile spread widely across her face, the first one in three weeks.

Lois was back.

Chloe ran as fast as she could to the hospital and threw open the door. She breathed deeply as she walked, looking around at every person that she passed, always looking for Lois.

Lois was alive, she was going to be fine. But that didn't mean that Chloe was going to find her completely unscathed. There were injured people all around her, and one of them could have been her.

Chloe reprimanded herself for not hacking into the hospital's database and looking for Lois' digital file. Now that she thought about it, having the hospital's database as a part of Watchtower would probably be a strong asset. She made a mental note to add it later. For now, she wanted to see Lois, to talk to her.

Maybe it was time to give her a vague version of what happened to Jimmy and Davis. Maybe Lois resurfacing again was some sort of sign that it was time to talk about it, to move on a little bit. Chloe wondered if she would be able to actually stick around at the Talon now that Lois was back.

At least she would be able to stop ghostwriting for Lois now that she was back. It would give her more time in a day to try and track down the rest of the team, or at the very least keep an eye on them. If they wanted to avoid her and blame her, then that was fine. Chloe would stay away and only hold out a hand if they wound up in trouble. But she would keep a watch out.

Chloe found all thoughts of work flying out of her head as she looked into an open doorway and saw Lois disconnecting herself from her IV. She was moving, walking around. She really was going to be okay.

"Lo!" She exclaimed, running into the room and giving her a hug. "The desk nurse called me. Where have you been?" She broke off the hug, and gave her cousin a look over. Bruise on her forehead, but other than that, she looked fine. "What happened to you?" She asked, concerned.

"Um", Lois looked around the room for a second. "Tess was rambling about some alien orb, and then we threw down in the middle of the Daily Planet", she started. Wait, her and Tess did what? An alien orb? What was going on? Tess did something dangerous. Chloe knew it. "And then wham, I wake up in a monorail car with some ninja chick after me."

Ninja chick? Okay, Chloe could believe Tess rambling about some alien orb, even the throw down in the newsroom. But the ninja chick part sounded a bit delusional. She looked at her forehead. Lois might have had a concussion, even some potential brain damage.

Chloe reached over and brushed back Lois' bangs to see the bruise better. "Alien orb? Lo, I think maybe you just bumped your head in the accident."

"Wait", Lois started. "Where have I been? You were the one who was playing Thelma and Louise with the creature from the black lagoon. How did you manage to ditch Davis?"

Okay, it was time to talk about this now. "I didn't exactly...ditch Davis", she started. Chloe was so used to lying, to keeping everything from her that it was hard to tell the truth. And even harder to come up with a lie. "Lo", she started, searching for the words, for some decision as to which one she would tell.

But before she could decide, Lois came up with her own story. "It was the Red-Blue Blur, wasn't it?" She asked, excitedly. "I knew it."

Lois walked past her, and Chloe, keeping Lois in her line of vision, turned around. "He promised me he'd save you and he did."

Oh, how Chloe wished that was true.

"That means he's still alive", Lois continued. "The train", she came to a realization before turning around to face Chloe. "He saved the train too, didn't he?"

Clark was here? In Kansas? Her cameras in the Barn didn't come up with anything- she watched the feed every night until she finally shut down Watchtower for the night. She would have known if Clark came back. The Watchtower would have picked up on it. He would have said something to her.

How did Lois know that he was here? What did Lois know? Was Clark okay?

"You've been talking to the Blur?" she asked

"Yes, he sort of...confides in me", Lois said.

Of course he did. Chloe actually took Clark seriously with his giving up on humanity clause. She thought that he was a man on a mission, trying to embrace his Kryptonian side and block out the emotional, human side. That it was for the good of the world.

He said that Clark Kent was dead. But apparently, that still meant that the Red-Blue Blur could confide in Lois all he wanted instead of turning to someone that he didn't have to hide from. Chloe was always there for him, had always been there.

She assumed that Clark was still out saving Metropolis and the rest of the world, that was fine. She just thought that he was trying to cut people off.

Turns out she was wrong. Clark was just trying to be nice to her that day because Jimmy was dead. Clark was just trying to cut her off. That's why he trusted in Lois and not her. It had to be the only reason. And it hurt.

But she couldn't let the hurt show in front of Lois. "Of course he does", she said.

She watched as Lois glanced at the clock and started panicking. "Holy...it's almost midnight. I promised him I would meet him. I'm going to be late!"

She started running around looking for her things. No, Chloe had held on for too long because she needed to find her one best friend in the world that hadn't intentionally bailed on her. She needed to tell Lois the truth now. Needed to say what happened to Jimmy. Clark would have to wait for five minutes. Learn that Lois was always tardy with everything, and that it was just how humans were.

"Lois, you are way beyond late, okay?" She started as Lois opened up a cabinet. "You need to slow down. There's something you need to know."

"He is the only one who can help me escape from the jaws of crouching tigers. I'm sorry, Chlo. Whatever it is, it's going to have to wait."

For a split second, Chloe lost the mask of cool. She lost the unemotional side that she had managed to keep up since that day outside of the Daily Planet. It had been two weeks since then- she had finally stopped crying all of the time and she needed to tell Lois now before she lost her nerve and lied to her again.

Because if she kept lying to Lois, she was going to lose her again. And next time, the nurse might not call her.

Chloe grabbed Lois' shoulders and kept her in place, spending all of her will power on not crying at that moment. "No, Lois, you need to wait!" She said, unable to hide the tone of hysteria and anxiousness in her voice. Okay, calm down. "Okay? I've got kind of a big...bomb I need to drop on you."

Lois took a breath. "Okay." She said softly. "You know what? You're right." She said, walking over to the bed.

Good. Okay, this was going to be alright. Lois wasn't going to go anywhere. She wasn't going to leave her like the others did. It was going to be okay. Chloe would tell her about Jimmy's and Davis, Lois would talk her through everything, maybe even have a movie night with ice cream back at the Talon, and everything would be fine.

It would be something at least, something on the way to healing. Something to atonement. Maybe she wasn't alone after all, if Lois came back somehow.

"I probably just took one on the noggin, and now I'm flipping out." Lois said, sitting down. Finally, someone who was willing to listen to her.

This is why family always comes first.

"I think I could use a sedative, it's been kind of a long day", Lois finished.

Chloe took a deep breath. "I'll get you two", she said before leaving the room and rushing over to a nurse. "Hi, my cousin, Lois Lane, is in that room over there", she started, pointing. "She was in the train accident earlier today, and I think that she might have a concussion. She was thinking about leaving the hospital just now, and I think that a sedative might help her, you know? Until the doctor gets there to make sure that she's okay."

The nurse nodded while writing down something on a file. "Sure, I'll get someone over in just a second."

"I know you're incredibly busy, but she's been missing for three weeks and she just got back. I have no idea where she came from and if she leaves, I don't know where to go to find her. I'm family. I just want to make sure that she's okay."

The nurse sighed before walking over to a man and pointing towards the room. The two of them walked towards the room and Chloe followed them.

The room was empty.

"She was just there", Chloe told them. "She must have left."

"I'm sorry", the nurse said to the man. "This one must be a drug addict in need of another fix. I should have realized."

The man muttered under his breath before running out the room and heading towards another patient, the nurse following.

"But she was right there!" Chloe insisted

Nobody looked back, nobody answered her.

She wasn't going crazy, Lois was right there. Chloe walked over to the chair that Lois' things were once on. She looked down at her feet and took a deep breath, trying to prevent the disappointment from taking over.

Lois went to go meet the Blur, and seeing a family member that she believed to be missing, running away with Davis and potentially putting her life in danger? It didn't seem to mean a thing.

Chloe's eyes drifted to something shining on the floor, and she bent down to pick it up. It was the Legion ring.

Alien orbs and ninja assassins. Going to the future would explain it. She rushed out of the hospital, reaching in her bag for her phone, and dialed Oliver Queen.

There was a strange vibrating noise coming from her pocket. Startled, Chloe reached in and pulled out Oliver's phone. Oh. Right.

She stared at Oliver's phone as it vibrated in her hand for a couple of seconds. Incoming call from Chloe Sullivan. Accept or Reject?

Oliver wasn't here anymore, and while Chloe could have ended the call from her own phone, she didn't. She looked at the reject button on Oliver's cell phone, and pressed it.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

She opened the double doors of the Watchtower, still looking at her cell phone. There was nobody to call. She had a feeling that Lois was telling the truth, that she had travelled to the future and brought back someone dangerous who was out to kill her, especially now that the Legion ring was involved.

Normally, she'd call Clark and together, they would take care of it. Or she would call someone on the team. But here she was after sending a mass text to everyone on the team saying that she needed help with something, and nobody had replied. There had been no phone calls, texts back, emails, or flashes of red speeding to greet her. And the worst part was that she couldn't think of a way to prove Lois' story. Or a way to help her.

She came here to try her headset and access a computer to try and see if someone was online. Or to see if she could take a peek at Oliver's belt cam to see if she could spot anything other than the usual darkness and muffled voices. Or if there was some satellite footage from the accident that could help at all.

She stepped inside of the center room in the dark when suddenly lights came on. There wasn't a motion detector here. What happened? Who was there?

She pulled her eyes away from the screen of her phone and looked around her in amazement as the Watchtower, now completely loaded with what looked like brand new computers on the main floor lit up, the screens turning on.

The monitors were flashing with information from her database. There were so many computers, and as she looked up, it seemed like just the beginning. There was a huge projector screen on one of the walls, her desk looked like it was hooked up to everything, equipped with a central keyboard and mouse. There were touch screens everywhere and computers completely covering the upper floor.

There was only one person who could afford this. Oliver had come back. She suddenly felt very stupid for being disappointed in the fact that Emil came around with his phone. Oliver probably abandoned it because he knew how important it was for her to talk to him in person.

Maybe this was some sort of apology gift for everyone bailing after the funeral. Well, if he came here to help her bring the team back together and fix things, then apology definitely accepted. He was strong enough to bring everyone together in the first place, he could definitely do it again. Chloe was surprised that he had been able to bounce back so quickly, but on some level, she must have known that he could.

Oliver could do anything, that's why he came back. He could bounce back after Davis and Jimmy killed each other. And surprisingly, he could bounce back after ending Lex's life. He was probably here to tell her in a cocky tone of voice that he was almost offended that she thought for a split second that he wouldn't come back. Oliver was always stronger than she was, that was why he came back here to fix things.

Clark told Oliver that he wasn't one of them anymore, but this equipment showed that Oliver didn't listen to him. He was strong enough to ignore what Clark said to him. And he would be able to end everyone's separation in the team. Because Emil was wrong, and on some level, Oliver must have known it. Must have known that Chloe was the reason as to why Jimmy died.

Oliver must have come back here to tell her that he was taking over the Watchtower. If he could get over the fact that Lionel Luthor killed his parents and that he took it out on Lex, then he could definitely blame Chloe for being the reason for Jimmy dying.

He made this place beautiful, much more beautiful than she could have done in a lifetime. And now that he was taking over, she wasn't needed anymore. Oliver could kill her, as was only right since she was more of a murderer than anything else- he even told her that she had become one of the bad guys. And since he could bounce back after Lex and Jimmy, he could bounce back after killing her too. It would be over, it would finally be over. She was a murderer, and Oliver would be bringing justice to the world.

The only part that shocked her right now was the fact that she knew her death would be coming around soon and for some reason, she felt completely calm about it. Maybe that was a bad thing, but right now, she didn't care. She didn't care to analyze what she was feeling.

She looked around again. He had done such a good job. She wished that she could operate from here just once before the end. But he could take over- all of her equipment at Isis used to be hooked up to his satellites anyway. He had the technology and the ability. This place would be in good hands.

"Oliver may be AWOL", a voice called out.

Wait a second, that voice didn't belong to Oliver. Oliver didn't do this? She turned around, and saw Emil.

Emil was new to all of this. He couldn't get the job done. It hadn't been Oliver after all. She tried not to let the disappointment show and listened to him speak as he held out a tiny remote control, a blue light glowing as he descended from the stairs.

"But his funds aren't."

Yeah, big words and actions for a guy who said that the team turned on each other and that was why they were gone. Or that she was just a sidekick. There was a bit of anger building up inside of her, and it wasn't just because Oliver wasn't here to finish things.

What was he doing here again? Hadn't she told him to get out of her way? This wasn't exactly following the rules.

"Shouldn't you be mothballing a lab or packing up Oliver's pleather collection?" She asked

"You made a solid argument earlier", he said, walking up to her. "Sometimes we try to forget, but there are things...well, there are people worth fighting for."

She had waited for so long for someone to come back and say that to her. She just hadn't expected it to come from Emil. She barely knew him at all, and was stunned. But at least the words came from someone.

"I don't know what to say", she said, smiling softly.

"I'd be more comfortable if we just got down to work."

And so would she. She spent years hanging out and being friends with everyone in the League, feeling comfortable with talking to them about anything that was on their minds. And spending years at not only the Daily Planet, but the Torch and Talon too, hanging out with Clark and talking about each other's problems. Not anymore. She had learned her lesson. None of that. No more emotions and no more pleasantries.

"Okay", she told him before getting down to business. "My cousin Lois vanished for three weeks, and then suddenly she appeared, claiming that she was being chased by a ninja clad assassin."

"Where was she?" Emil asked

"That, she has no memory of. But luckily, she did leave a souvenir from her trip." Chloe pulled out the bunch of cloth in her purse and unwrapped it, revealing the Legion ring. "Now, I know this might sound crazy to you, but I think I know where she was: the future."

"Transversing chronal anomalies", he muttered before walking past her. "I ran some scans of the time of the monorail crash." He walked over to a touch screen table. "I discovered two rips", he paused, placing two fingers on the screen and waiting for a window to pop up. "In the temporal aperture continuum."

This screen wasn't going to do anything for her. She placed two index fingers on the image and expanded it until it covered the screen on the wall. Whoa. Okay, that was cool.

But that didn't mean that she had a clue as to what Emil was talking about. And that was a first. They used to call her Brainiac in elementary school as a kid, which was funny considering the fact that Brainiac actually possessed her a year ago. She was smart, she was able to work her way around everything.

"Okay, I've never actually said this before", she started. "But could you dumb that down just a little bit?"

"Two rips in the fabric of our universe", he clarified. Oh. Sure. "Okay, well Lois explains one of them. But the other..." she trailed off as she thought about what Lois was saying to her before. Ninja assassin. Oh no. There really was someone out to kill her. She stared at the two blips on the screen. "Maybe she's not delusional."

"Maybe someone came back from the future with her."

And they had no way of helping her. No way of protecting Lois. If Lois was back, then Chloe would bet that there was a certain alien looking down on rooftops, keeping an eye on the city. And since Clark never did stick around to find out that the roof of the Watchtower would be ideal for city gazing, she had a feeling that he would be standing around the next best thing. Especially if Lois was in contact with the Red-Blue Blur.

After all, confided in Lois.

"I have an idea", Chloe said.

"What?" Emil asked

"There's only so much protecting the two of us can do. I think I have an idea as to where Clark is."

She didn't know if Emil would offer to come with her, and she really didn't care. Business only. Even if he voiced an offer, she didn't hear it. Chloe was already out the door.

She had no idea if Clark had sped up the stairs and did a super leap up the building. All she knew was that when she opened the door to the Daily Planet roof, he was right there.

An idea suddenly came to her mind- if Clark was back and she had the Legion ring, there was the possibility that he could turn time and make it so Jimmy had never been killed. Chloe could wake up tomorrow morning like nothing had ever happened, the team would still be together, and everything would be bright again.

Everything was screwed up because of her, but also because she decided to help carry out Clark's plan. Oliver said that Clark hadn't figured out a way to control the beast part. She should have realized that it was the human part that was tricky. And that human part was tricky because of her.

The two of them could change things, but she pushed the idea out of her mind for now. It was the first time seeing Clark since he left her behind at the Watchtower. It wasn't time to propose world altering ideas right now. It was time to save her cousin and think about the rest of it later. Even if said cousin abandoned her at the hospital. Right before she was about to tell her the truth.

She stepped forward as he turned around to face her. She was a bit surprised that he had surfaced. Then again, she shouldn't have been. Lois came back.

"For three weeks, I've been trying to track you down and you're completely off the radar. Lois shows up for one day and you're as predictable as clockwork", she remarked.

He stepped back from the roof. "It wasn't that I didn't want to come by and see that you were okay."

She looked down for a second. Giving up on humanity. Got it. It wasn't like she forgot. "I know."

"Leaving everyone behind...it's not what I wanted."

But everyone else had already left. The team went their own separate ways after the funeral, Lois was already missing. In fact, out of everyone that they had ever known, the only person that was actually still in Metropolis when Clark left was her. But it was for the greater good, she knew it was. And instead of being bitter to the guy and driving him away from the city when he might want to stay, even if it was just for Lois, then that was fine.

She put on a brave face and shook her head. "It's not about what we want, Clark, it's about what the rest of the world needs. I get it."

She remembered telling Clark after Brainiac was removed from her body that if it came down to the rest of the world or her, she would understand it if she couldn't be saved.

Back then, Clark chose her. He used every weird way that he could think of in order to make sure that no harm would come to her, even when the Legion told him that she didn't exist in the future and that maybe that letting her die was the only way to save the world.

And now, he was choosing the rest of the world. Saying that she would understand was one thing, actually doing it was hard. But it was what she needed to do, before Clark became flaky and stopped committing to his training.

No emotions, Chloe. Just cold, hard facts. Don't feel the pain, don't beg him to stay.

"I was lucky to be a part of your life for a little while, but we both know that...you'd have to move on one day."

"I started the training Jor-El always planned for me." So her assumption about how he was spending his time these days was right. Well, it's not like there was super awesome reception in the middle of the Arctic in the Fortress of Solitude.

She blocked a memory coming to mind, and a certain voice. Seriously, who names these things?

"Everything that I've learned and he's showed me", Clark continued. "My old life seems very far away."

She kept her head very still as she spoke. "You're doing the right thing, Clark."

Her old life seemed far away too. "You can't look back", she said, both to him and to herself.

"It's the only way I can stay focused. Stay objective."

Maybe she needed to adapt a couple of pages from the new and improved Clark Kent's book. Stay objective. No emotions.

"Letting go of everyone I've ever cared about and letting go of every attachment that may influence the choices that I have to make."

So why did he come back for Lois? It didn't seem like that was a part of the letting go.

Chloe didn't mean enough to him. Lois obviously meant more to him than she did, even after all these years.

Things get messy when you throw in the Clark- Lana triangle, and I'm speaking from experience when I say that the third point always hurts.

"So what part of that involves skulking around a phone booth looking for Lois?" She asked. If nothing else, Clark was breaking his own rules. And that wasn't staying objective.

"It's not like that", he said. Yeah. Sure. "Yes, I came back to find her, but only to say goodbye."

***Flash***

_"Ask me whatever you want", she said slightly afraid of telling the truth._

_Instead of asking questions, he leaned in and kissed her deeply. "Do you want that more than you want Clark?"_

_She answered with a kiss instead of saying the words. _

_"You have your secrets and I have mine. Deal?" _

***End Flash***

She blinked, letting the memories and emotions disappear in a flash. There was a wandering thought that stuck around for a couple of seconds as she felt the cloth in her pocket, the one containing the Legion Ring. Jimmy wasn't meant to die or get caught up in all of this. She could go back to the past and save him.

But in time, even that thought faded momentarily. This is all just business with Clark. That's it. "Well, let's hope you still have a chance", she said, focusing on the topic of Lois' ninja assailant from the future. She pulled out the cloth containing the Legion ring again. "I think Lois found your lucky charm and hitchhiked to the future", she explained for the second time today.

"She", Clark started.

"She's fine", Chloe interrupted, unsure of how she would feel if Clark started the same old I-should-have-been-here-to-stop-her-from-getting-hurt behavior. Because Clark should have been here. Chloe's one friend in the universe, and he should have been here to take care of her when everybody else left.

"She doesn't remember anything", she continued in case Clark thought that Lois knew his secret. "But she didn't come back alone. And it looks like her excess baggage might be trying to kill her."

"I'll take care of it."

"Clark, you don't even-" she was cut off as he sped past her and out the door. "Know what you're up against." She finished, turning to face the door that he had opened but didn't shut on his way out. She walked over to the edge, and looked down the stairwells to the bottom.

She remembered falling down there. Falling, falling, until Clark caught her just before impact. She wondered if Clark would catch her if she just jumped. But Clark was long gone by now. She walked down the flights of stairs and headed straight back to the Watchtower. She had a feeling that whatever happened between Lois' ninja assailant and Clark would take place at the Barn, and then Clark would leave again.

For some sick reason, she wanted to watch him leave again on her cameras at the Watchtower to see if she could survive it a second time.


	7. Chapter 7

Summary: Oliver let Chloe down time and again. She could only depend on two things these days- her rationality and her work. So what was her logic doing, constantly giving him second chances?

Chapter Seven

She was halfway over to the Watchtower when her cell phone beeped. She pulled it out of her pocket and examined the screen that had popped up from Watchtower's database- Oliver Queen: Located.

She stopped in her tracks and a man on the street bumped into her. "Watch where you're going, lady", he said to her before passing her. She ignored him as she scrolled through the article. Oliver was at an underground fight club. And she had an address.

She turned around and started running towards a nearby subway stop, going down the stairs as fast as her feet would allow before running to the subway that had just stopped and was taking passengers.

She stepped in as the doors were closing in on her and held onto the rail as the car sped out of the tunnel. There was a man looking her up and down, smiling, but she didn't even notice him because her eyes were fixed on her phone. This was it.

She put a camera on his belt, hacked into the security cameras at the lobby of the Clocktower and watched them every day and night alongside with her footage of the Barn. It had all been unfruitful, one disappointment after another, but it didn't matter now because now, she knew where Oliver was.

She could understand why he was at an underground fight club. She was just grateful that he wasn't out drinking himself to death, that she wouldn't have to see him go to the celebrity status AA meetings in order to get any real Justice League work done. After all of this time, she was excited at the idea of seeing someone from the team again, but she tried to control the excitement. Oliver was still mad at her. But at least he would be able to talk about what had happened, bring up Jimmy's name, even. Clark wasn't able to.

The subway came to a stop, and the doors opened. She pushed her way through all of the people, and started running again towards a really dangerous looking part of the city. There were bits of concrete scattered everywhere and a door that had been blown away. Chloe looked at the trail of where it all seemed to be coming from and double checked the address on her phone. Of course he was here. Why not?

She walked towards the mess, and saw Clark's kryptonian mark on a fence. Was Clark here? Did he track down Oliver? Chloe started getting angry. He was supposed to be helping out Lois. That was the whole reason for him coming back. She was supposed to track down the team, not Clark. But Clark seemed to have tracked him down by himself. She didn't think that he even stepped into the Watchtower. Some kind of Watchtower she was.

She was probably crazy for doing all of this. For making this stupid database when it wasn't even necessary. In two seconds, Lois had come back, Clark trailing right behind her, and Clark had tracked down Oliver. While Chloe had been searching for every second of every day for three weeks and had gotten nowhere. She really wasn't needed with this, was she? Nobody really needed her.

But that didn't mean that she didn't want answers, she did. And as she spotted a nearby camera at the corner, she realized that what she needed to do right now was play catch up. Find out what the hell went on here. But it was too high up. She couldn't super leap up or shoot some sort of arrow that would release a rope and wrap itself around the camera and pull it back. But there was a fenced in cage here. And she could climb the fence, jump over to the other side, and grab the camera.

She climbed the fence, hoping that it wouldn't suddenly fall. She had to do everything herself these days, and couldn't believe just how much she needed people. But she wasn't going to do that right now, wasn't going to call someone to get a stupid camera for her just because her curiosity was piqued. If they wouldn't help her, wouldn't even talk to her, then she would do everything by herself.

It wasn't that I didn't want to come by and see that you were okay.

Of course not. Nobody wanted to see if she was okay or not. They just all assumed that she was. And she was tired of feeling vulnerable and crying all of the time. Of being left behind and feeling like she was an outdated piece of technology. Clark decided to grow up, and that was fine. They could have changed their pace of doing things together.

I'm sorry, Chlo. Whatever it is, it's going to have to wait.

And she was always the one waiting around. She thought that she could change things by starting the search first, but that's not what ended up happening after all. Turns out that things can't get a jump start if you're just the sidekick.

She jumped from the fence, and grabbed the video camera. She forgot about the falling thing. And she forgot that she was wearing heels.

There was a moment that flashed to her mind of changing a light bulb at the Isis Foundation. She was wearing heels then too. She remembered Davis fastening the light bulb right before she down, video camera in hand, ankle twisting in the process.

***Flash***

_"Why were you in there?" Sebastian Kane asked. "You don't seem so special."_

***End Flash***

She shot up, ignoring the pain in her ankle as she steadied herself. The camera was okay. That was all that mattered.

She pressed play and watched a glaring light through the screen, people scattering all over the place. There was a lot of commotion, and she couldn't make sense of what was going on or what was being said.

And then she saw two figures left behind.

"You're a mess", a female voice said loudly. Was that Lois?

So Lois went to talk to Clark, and then went to go find Oliver? That didn't make much sense, unless she went to find the only superhero that she knew to help her.

Oliver let out a groan. "Yeah. Why don't you just come out with it, Lois?"

"I'm disappointed."

"There you go, see, you sound like every other ex-girlfriend I ever had."

"Yes, but I'm not like every other ex you've had."

"You're not", Oliver admitted. "I can't seem to get you back in my bed."

Chloe cringed at his words. Lois just laughed.

"Look, you know what?" Lois asked. "You can't fool me. You risk your life to help strangers. So you can plaster that frat boy grant across your face? But I know that you're a real hero underneath."

And not only did Lois find Oliver first, now she was going to convince Oliver to resume hero work. So turns out that Chloe wasn't just bad at being Watchtower. Maybe she was never cut out for the job.

"Look, Lois, when are you going to learn? Okay? I'm nothing more than a shallow playboy. I've got the tabloid covers to prove it."

"Then how do you explain the whole Green Arrow thing?"

Chloe froze. She really hoped that nobody else found this camera before she did. Otherwise, Oliver's identity was going to be in jeopardy. Lois should have seen the camera, should have gotten rid of it. But then again, had she done so, Chloe wouldn't have been able to see what was going on.

"You know, the whole hero thing kind of distracted me a for a little while." He said. "So did you", he added.

"Hmm", Lois smiled before adding pressure to the wound.

"Ow ow ow ow", he let out before she let go.

"You're an obnoxious jackass."

"There you go, see? Now you're finally starting to catch on."

Oliver wanted Lois to get away from him. He was pushing her away, and Chloe could see that.

"Look, I'm sorry if you ever thought that I was anything more than that, Lois, but it's not my fault." Oliver said.

But Oliver was. He had always been something more than that. What was the Justice League to him, then? Some sort of distraction? Chloe didn't believe that. Not for one second. Oliver was good at lying, but he wasn't that good.

"You know what? That's okay." Lois said, shaking her head and getting up. What? How was that okay? This whole thing wasn't actually working on Lois, was it?

"Really." Oliver seemed surprised himself. Maybe because it was too easy, Chloe wasn't sure.

"I guess you know yourself better than anyone", Lois said as she walked backwards.

Chloe pressed a button on the video camera and zoomed in on Oliver's face. He was disappointed that she didn't try harder to convince him of the good that he could do. That he had done in the past. Lois didn't even ask what started this behavior.

Chloe zoomed out again just in time to see Lois turn around and face him.

"You know, maybe I don't really need you, Ollie. I've already found my real hero."

Chloe ended the clip as Lois walked out. She could tell what Oliver's response was by the broken shards of glass on the ground from where he was sitting.

None of this was Oliver's fault. This was all on Chloe, there was no reason as to why Oliver should be like this, or be doing these things. But this camera? She needed to take it back to the Watchtower in order to keep Oliver's identity a secret. Destroy it, even.

She took the subway back in silence, stepped back into the Watchtower, and barely noticed that Emil wasn't here anymore. Oh well, she didn't really care. She stashed the video camera, and pulled up the footage of the lobby of the Clocktower. She fast forwarded the footage, and put everything through a filter to see if anybody fitting Oliver's physical profile had showed up. It didn't come up with any results.

She pulled up the footage of the Barn next, wondering what had happened. She was about to rewind everything, when she found that Clark was actually working away. Lifting bales of hay like he used to. How very human of him.

She pulled on her coat and got over there. And Clark was still there. He went out of the Barn to do something outside, so she waited inside for him.

When he did, he almost stopped at the sight of her waiting, before continuing his path. "It's over." He told her.

Oh, right. Between him and Lois' ninja assassin. She had almost forgotten.

"Who was she?" Chloe asked as Clark walked past her.

"I don't know. I have a feeling I'm going to find out."

Okay, cryptic. Sure. "She was from Krypton."

Of course she was. They were always from Krypton, in some form or another. She was probably the one to brand Clark's family symbol in that underground fight club. Which meant that she had powers.

Maybe Chloe was insanely out of date, but the last time she checked, Krypton had been destroyed. Which was why Clark was here on Earth to begin with. And yet, there was Davis, who was beamed down at the same time, Professor Fine who used to run around, and Kryptonians who used to escape from the Phantom Zone.

But she had decided not to focus on the how, especially with the Legion ring still in her pocket.

"Krypton? I don't understand, what was she doing here? What did she say?"

"She told me that I would cause the end of the world."

How very original. Clark couldn't be taking her seriously, could he? Just because of Doomsday.

"It's like I have a ticking time-bomb on me, Chloe. And I only have a year to stop it."

***Flash***

_"Face it, Clark. I'm a walking time-bomb."_

_"Then consider me your own personal bomb squad."_

***End Flash***

"You can't believe everything an assassin tells you", Chloe told him. "I mean, what does she know anyway, right?"

He wiped his hands on a towel, focusing on that. "The future."

"Right. The future." For years, she had been able to keep him from severely doubting himself. She helped him to believe in himself, but now, it wasn't working. None of it was, and she didn't know how to fix any of it.

He didn't want to check on her to see if she was okay, but she still wanted to make sure that he didn't doubt himself. And that was probably wrong. She found herself needing to hold a triple filter between her thoughts and what she said to him.

She needed to focus on the future, the end of the world. If Clark was going to take this threat seriously, and not listen to her, then they needed to make sure that they were prepared.

But how could they do that if their last brilliant plan to save the world backfired and killed people?

She thought about Oliver, and how he had pushed Lois away. About the singular tear rolling down his cheek during Jimmy's funeral that Chloe was half-heartedly convinced was all in her mind. About how Emil said that the team is off the grid because they turned on each other, when it was really all her fault.

But it wasn't just her plan that went up in flames. It was originally Clark's plan. It was Clark's black kryptonite that she found in Bart's backpack. It was their plan together, and Jimmy died before his time. They were both in their early twenties, it couldn't have possibly been his time to go.

She had the Legion ring in her pocket still. Clark could go back. He had super-speed. He could go back, keep Jimmy out of harm's way, prevent him from even getting involved in the first place, and then stop Davis.

It was wrong that Oliver was blaming himself. That everyone else was blaming themselves for a plan that had gone wrong because of her. And the Legion ring was the only way to stop it all from happening, maybe it was the only way to stop this foreseen terrible future from occurring.

"What is it, Chloe?" Clark asked, interrupting her from her thoughts.

She looked him straight in the eye and somehow, her mouth opened and words came out. "I want you to go back and save Jimmy", she told him. "Take the ring and stop him from being killed."

"You can't ask me to", he started.

No. No more excuses. She stopped wanting the excuses the second that he walked out the door. "Clark", she interrupted. "You said that your sole purpose for giving everything up was so that you could dedicate your life to helping people. So help him, Clark. Save him."

"That would be changing destiny."

What destiny? The world ending? Jimmy dying, the team falling apart? Oliver saying that being the Green Arrow was just a distraction? What was wrong about changing all of that? Isn't that what the world needed right now?

Maybe this future was going to happen because she screwed things up. Maybe those were the ultimate consequences. Dying, she could deal with. Being killed, she could embrace. The world ending was not something that she was willing to accept.

"Whose destiny? Not Jimmy's." She stepped forward. "You and I both know that. He didn't deserve to die, Clark. He died? Because you and I screwed up. Because we made a mistake. Now you have to fix it!"

"I'm not a God! And the last time I tried to rewrite fate, my own father died! He died right here in my arms because of me."

And the woman that Clark tried to save that day wasn't even in their lives anymore. She married Lex.

Clark couldn't talk about what had fully happened that day. She could tell that he was uncomfortable enough by bringing up Jonathan Kent and her bringing up Jimmy. He left the memory of all of them behind, he never brought them up.

It was almost like he forgot about everyone from their past. But Chloe remembered them all. She remembered the faces of every single student from high school who was infected by meteor rock. And she remembered everyone from her past. She remembered Whitney, Lana, Pete, Jason, Dr. Swann, all of them.

Her mother.

And she refused to let the rest of the team just become names on the list. She refused to let Jimmy be forgotten, for that little boy who came to his funeral to just have his Nikon camera get dusty in the corner before he forgot where it came from one day and threw it away. It wasn't going to happen.

She felt the tears well up started shaking her head. She cursed herself for letting this happen, for letting the emotions get the best of her. For letting it all show. So much for the triple filter.

She swallowed a lump in her throat, and hoped that her voice wouldn't break. But it did. "I've given up so much for you, Clark. This is the only thing I've ever asked from you."

She tried to keep her voice steady. "Please. Please do this for me. Please save Jimmy", she begged.

Even after everything, Clark seemed completely unaffected. "I can't." He said.

The tears fell freely, and she took a deep breath, keeping her head up high. She reached in her pocket, and let the ring drop to the floor. She couldn't save Jimmy by herself, she wasn't even able to get a stupid video camera from a wall without hurting her ankle.

"That's good", she said, clearing her throat.

She remembered wanting to watch Clark leave before on her cameras to see if she could handle it. This was a little different, but the basic concepts were the same.

The past was the past. Clark wasn't going to save Jimmy. He wasn't going to check on her to make sure that she was okay, wasn't going to super-speed to her rescue if it came down to her or Lois.

And in return, she wasn't going to try and keep their friendship alive. He didn't want it to. He didn't want the stickiness of human emotion.

"It's good", she repeated, nodding her head, trying to assure herself of the fact more than Clark. She wiped her tears away with a hand quickly.

"It's good that you're embracing your Kryptonian side", she said, wiping away the tears on the other side of her face. "There isn't really anything human left in you."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Chloe stopped watching the Barn's video footage at the Watchtower and focused on tracking down the team. She bought a coffee pot for the place and spent a week holed up morning and night upgrading the computer systems herself to see if the changes could find someone.

She spent the entire week working. She would drift off sometimes and find herself waking up on her desk, but she was getting used to just getting up, starting another pot and resuming her work.

She tried not to think about the fact that if Victor were here, the upgrade wouldn't have taken this long. Or that if Oliver were still around, he would ask what they needed an upgrade.

But Oliver was too busy on the move, never staying in one place for very long. A part of Chloe was very glad that she was no longer a journalist- they all sucked at their jobs right now. They never updated his location quickly enough, which a person would think to be imperative for gossip columns and tabloids.

If there was a single one reporting on a spotting of Oliver, she had the article forwarded to her phone immediately and went there as fast as she can. But he was always gone before she arrived. He always slipped through her fingers like water. And upgrading the system hadn't helped matters. He still wasn't on the grid. Right now, the tabloids were all she had.

Emil wasn't here too much. He still had his job doing research and treating patients, and that was fine with Chloe. She barely noticed him when he was here, anyway. And she was getting used to the constant silence at the Watchtower.

She wondered if her voice box would just stop working one day because it hadn't been used in a while. Sometimes, it became a genuine fear of hers, getting mugged one day and not being able to scream.

***Flash***

"You're not screaming loud enough", Clark explained.

"Clark! I have freaked out every alley-cat within a four block radius!"

"Look, let's just go one more time. One more, come on."

She gave him a tired look, and he held out the strap of her purse. "Take it. Come on." He beckoned.

She sighed and grabbed it again. They pretended to fight.

***End Flash***

She headed up the Talon steps to sleep in her own bed for once. Now that Lois was back, she could actually stay in the building without vomiting, as long as she didn't go down to the basement. She avoided those steps, and since she never worked at the Talon, she never really needed to go down there.

She was trying to stay only surface deep when it came down to her conversations with Lois. Her cousin never brought up the subject of the bomb that Chloe wanted to drop on her back at the hospital, so she generally avoided going there too.

The topic was still looming over her head every time they bumped into each other, even if Lois had no idea. Which was only one of the reasons as to why it had taken Chloe this long to get back to Smallville. She meant to go back hours ago, but she kept pushing it off, doing more work at the Watchtower.

She opened the door to the apartment, thinking that Lois would be at the Planet by now, when she saw Clark's dog, Shelby rushing towards her. And Lois still in her pajamas on the couch.

"Uh, Lois?" She asked, automatically bending down to pet the dog. "Why is Clark's dog welcoming me home?" Her bag dropped to the floor, and she lifted her head up to look at her cousin.

"Oh, I dropped by the farm and I found Shelby all alone with her Wheaties. I thought Clark secretly came back and didn't tell us."

Clark was feeding Shelby? Seriously? He abandoned humanity, his human life, his human friends to fulfill his Kryptonian destiny. He looked her straight in the eye and told her that he wouldn't even attempt to right the wrongs that they made during Doomsday, she hadn't seen or heard from him since then, but he still came home to feed the dog?

Chloe did however, find it very funny that Lois thought that the best idea was to dog-nap Shelby.

"So you decided to call him out by dog-napping his furry friend?" She asked before setting her keys down on the table. Still, it was time to cover for Clark. If Clark was still out being the Blur, then that meant he was more willing to be Kal-El, last son of Krypton than Clark Kent, farm boy and reporter for the Daily Planet.

"Lois, I'm sorry, I should have told you. I'm the one who was on pooch patrol", she lied. She was always lying, and she just got better and better. "Clark still isn't back yet."

"I know", Lois said. "I called Mrs. K and she said that he's visiting cousins in Poughkeepsie." Okay, so calling Mrs. Kent to get a good cover story was a good idea after all. Chloe awarded herself points for being thorough, knowing that there was nobody else left to do so. "I mean, how long can you stay in Poughkeepsie?" Lois asked, putting a hand on her hip.

"Sounds like someone misses him", Chloe answered, raising an eyebrow in question. It was common sense that Lois and Clark had mutual feelings for each other. Lois was in denial again, and that was okay. She was just tired of the two of them playing the games with each other. It was boring.

"Please, I don't miss Clark", Lois insisted. Oh, you do too. "I just can't stand the new guy that's at his desk. He's a textbook hero hater."

Which was funny to hear coming out of Lois' mouth, since she turned her back on the Green Arrow. Chloe painted an expressionless look on her face so that Lois couldn't pick up on what was going on in her head.

It worked, and Lois started to ramble. "Oh come on, who hates the Blur?"

Chloe still wasn't a fan of the name. Just like she wasn't a fan of the Green Arrow Bandit. Thankfully, the team had dropped the Bandit in Green Arrow at the end of the day.

"Anyone who reads can see how great he is", Lois continued.

Not everyone.

Chloe walked over to the table where she spotted the newspaper and its front page. "Looks like he's really spreading his wings, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, I just hope he's not spreading himself too thin", Lois said, a worried tone in her voice. "I mean, he sounds a little lonely. I can hear it in his voice."

Wait, Clark was talking to Lois? Still? After everything?

"His voice?" Chloe asked before turning to face Lois. "Did he call you again?" She asked

She watched as Lois froze before turning around. "Well, I am his one and only contact at the paper."

"So it was work related, then." If Clark just wanted to make sure that the press was doing an okay job with spinning his story, than that was fine with her. As long as it was just that.

"Not really." Lois started as she walked around, avoiding Chloe's gaze. "I mean, he calls when I'm at work. He relates things to me, but...sometimes I think he just calls to chat."

Clark calls her just to chat? Seriously? He couldn't just chat with Chloe, like he had done for years? He couldn't stop by the Watchtower once just to see what was new with her? He didn't have to hide his powers from Chloe, didn't have to hide who he was or what he was doing with his life? She told him that she understood what he was doing, which took a hell of a lot of self-restraint on her part.

"I think maybe, I'm the only person in his life that he can really turn to." Lois said.

Chloe tried not to look too disappointed, tried not to let her emotions show, because if she did, Lois would know something. But that didn't mean that the disappointment wasn't there, because it was. It was emitting from the top of her head to her toes.

There was nothing for her to say that wouldn't prompt Lois to ask questions. So the triple filter returned again. She put on a smile, an encouraging voice. "Wow", she started. "That's incredible." She told her cousin, hoping that Lois wouldn't catch onto the bitterness in her voice.

And it worked. "I know, right? Anyway, can we table this tell-all until later? I have to get ready. It's time to step back into the ring with a certain CEO." Chloe wouldn't call it a tell-all. Because Lois still didn't know that Jimmy was dead. She didn't know anything going on with Chloe.

Lois may have become an ace reporter at the Daily Planet, but she still didn't ask Chloe the right questions. Or any questions at all.

Chloe did however, remember the reference to Tess Mercer and Lois' fight with her. She smiled at her cousin, mentally thanking her for unintentionally reminding her to check up on Mercer's return.

They kissed each other on the cheek, said their temporary goodbyes, and Lois headed over to the bathroom.

There was no time for sleep. She couldn't waste another second.

Lois wasn't ready for the kind of danger that Clark was putting himself against every day. She would be someday, but she wasn't now. Lois didn't even have the foresight to wonder if she could trust the random voice that she was talking to.

Lois was lucky that it was only Clark that she was talking to and not someone else. But she didn't know about that. She could get in serious trouble here, and have no idea why. Or some psycho could start the same process with Lois. She would have no idea.

She waited until Lois started her shower before scooping Shelby up and heading over to the Barn, thankful that it wasn't incredibly far from where she was right now. Once she got out of the Talon, she set the dog down, and they walked together to the Barn. She watched with a small smile as Shelby ran ahead of her once they could see it in the distance.

She let the dog play around and followed it as it made its way over to the main house, remembering why she was here. It wasn't to have a fun time.

She knew that it wouldn't be long until Clark eventually stopped by. She waited in the corner, watching his dog roam around freely, almost enviously.

Clark sped over to the kitchen, and started playing with Shelby. It was as good a time as any to step forward. When she did, Clark spotted her. A part of her wanted to make peace with him, but she didn't.

"Lois stopped by and found Shelby alone with a dish full of food?" She started. "Now, don't worry, I covered for you. But you should know that you're now on her radar."

Professional, strictly business. That's what it was again, and that's how she behaved.

"Thanks, I'll be more careful next time." Clark told her.

That wasn't good enough. She didn't just want words of assurance. She wanted results. She wanted him to think these things through before he did them.

"Dressed like that?" She asked. The rest of the team never wandered around in their gear, not since Lois almost caught Oliver as the Green Arrow years ago. Thankfully, Ollie's disguise was a bit more disguising that Clark's was. Lois thought that Green Arrow was breaking in to the Penthouse. Clark didn't even realize how important the disguises were. To him, they were just clothes.

He thought that it was okay to just play around with the dog in his Blur garb. Lois' plan was to dog-nap Shelby and hope that Clark would come running. She could have easily waited with Shelby to see when Clark would come around to feed her next. Lois would have seen exactly what she had- Clark using his abilities to speed in with the Blur get-up. It was foolish.

"Clark, what if I was Lois? She would take one look at you and realize that Clark Kent is the Blur."

"I told you, there is no Clark Kent."

Of course there still was. Clark Kent stops by to feed the dog. He doesn't use Chloe's resources at the Watchtower and brings a rookie into the Big Leagues instead. It was a Clark Kent move, not the move of an emotionless, human-less Kryptonian.

"No disrespect to your Kryptonian calling, but coming back to feed the dog is about as human as it gets." She said evenly. Now, what she really wanted to know was if Clark would lie to her if he felt that it was necessary. "Are you still reaching out to Lois as the Blur?" She asked

"She told you?"

So he wouldn't lie to her directly. Not if there was a chance that Lois would have told her the truth. Clark wasn't being objective or unemotional at all. No, it looked like Chloe was doing that instead.

"You're supposed to be training with Jor-El. Does he know you're still talking to her?"

"Jor-El doesn't need to know", Clark answered immediately.

So it was a little dirty secret from Daddy too. Oh, good job, Clark. "So you're lying to him."

She turned around, trying to mask her rage. So he was lying to Jor-El, hiding things from her. Looks like Clark only gives up on humanity when he feels like it. He didn't commit to it. "You say you're turning your back on all human attachments, Clark, but apparently, only when it suits you."

"You're taking this all too personally, Chloe." Of course she was taking it personally. That was a rational response. Not what Clark was doing. "And I understand you're still angry about Jim-"

"-We both sacrificed a lot so that you could become the hero you're meant to be", she interrupted so that Clark wouldn't finish saying his name.

The truth was that she buried herself in upgrading Watchtower to prevent herself from thinking about it too much. To tire herself out from thinking too much, to stop herself from wondering what she didn't do for Clark over the years, what she could have possibly done to offend him so much that he couldn't give her this one thing.

"Now, quit backpedalling, Clark", she said bitingly. "Commit to what you started before more people get hurt." She stared at him for a couple of seconds, hoping that her message would sink in before turning back and walked out the back door, letting the door slam behind her.

Her phone beeped, and she took it out to watch a screen suddenly load up. There was a blip that was moving really quickly. She could barely follow it, it was moving so fast. She zoomed out of the map as the blip continued to move in and out.

The blinking light was moving in water.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

"You're sure that this is okay?" Emil asked Chloe

"Hey, you're the one who said that even if Oliver isn't here, his funds are. So are his resources", Chloe answered.

"This is a Luthorcorp submarine."

"Which merged with Queen Industries. Besides, Luthorcorp used to have projects dealing with the deep blue sea, that's how I got to know AC in the first place", she said as she hooked up her computer to the main center.

If her idea worked, then it wouldn't be a bad thing that she decided against getting trained professionals to operate this thing. She could type commands into her laptop and not only use Watchtower's tracking system, but run the sub as well.

"Exactly, it'll make him mad."

"No, it'll draw him towards us. He'll think that Luthorcorp is up to something again." She reached over and hooked the last wire up to the main system.

"And if they aren't?" Emil asked

She pulled herself back up and looked Emil straight in the eye. "Luthorcorp is always up to something."

"You don't know that."

She knew not to be so naive. Tess Mercer was back with some sort of plan. She could feel it. "Yes I do." She sat down. "Now, you can leave or you can stick around. It's your choice, we're still hooked up to the main lab." Her eyes were still on the moving blip. "But you better make a decision quickly, otherwise from the look of it, you're going to end up in the middle of Venice."

Emil looked at the door and then back at her. This guy ran around making split second decisions in an operating room? Doubtful. Chloe snapped her fingers impatiently. "Quick decision, Emil. I'm going to make sure this thing operates as fast as possible. I want to get back to Metropolis by lunch time."

"Why, what's going on then?"

"I want to check out Lois' computer at the Daily Planet, see what's going on there. Lois is writing stories on the Blur, Clark's been talking to her. I want to make sure that her computer's not being bugged."

It had to be by lunch because she was planning on using a lunch invitation to explain why she was there longer than expected. She wanted to run a security scan on the entire system. Even though Clark hadn't checked before. Or asked her to check for him.

She strapped herself in, and looked at the GPS again. "Shall I assume that you're staying?" She asked Emil, disinterested as to whether or not he was actually sticking around. It didn't matter.

He sat down and strapped himself in too. "Yeah."

"Lovely." She put all of her focus on the laptop screen in front of her and started to type rapidly on the keyboard, trying not to be too impressed with herself when the submarine started moving.

"Aren't you going to look up to see where you're going?"

The computer had everything that she needed. "Unnecessary", she said, continuing with her typing, an eye on the GPS program which had changed. The sub had two blips now, one green and one orange. And she had every intention of lining up her green blip with AC's orange one. He couldn't swim away from her forever, not now that she had technology on her side.

"I've never been in a submarine before", Emil said casually. Didn't he know that small talk was unnecessary? She hadn't been in one either, but that didn't mean that she didn't seem to have the knowledge of how to operate one in her own roundabout way.

"I think it's all a matter of making sure that we don't lose sight of him once we track him down", she said, ignoring his attempt with the pleasantries.

"He won't think that we're trying to attack him?"

"Oh, of course he will", Chloe said, typing away. "He'll try to kill us for self-preservation. It won't work. Hence the reason for a weaponized sub."

"You're going to kill him instead?" Emil asked

She wished that he had reconsidered, had gone back to his pretty little white hospital and worked instead of making her explain every single little detail of her plan. It was making her frustrated. For a smart guy that made her ask if he could dumb something down for her once, he didn't seem to be picking up on this whole thing as fast as she would have liked.

"No, I'm not going to kill him. Now can you stop talking for a couple of seconds so I can find him? We're not exactly tracking down a slow little guppy here."

"Sorry." He sat back and she continued to type as fast as she could in order to navigate the sub. She struggled to follow not only the blip on the GPS, but the necessary ins and outs of the ocean in front of her in order to continue following one of her lost team-members.

It was when blip turned to actual human being that life became difficult for her. She forgot just how good AC was at communicating with animals in the water, how he could send them behind him as he sped away.

The yelling coming from Emil to back up and go another route wasn't helping. She wanted to push through the sea creatures, to force them to get out of her way for their own self-preservation, but she couldn't drive herself to do it. She went up and around the school of fish instead.

She maintained the same methods of approaching AC's fishy friends until he sent back a shark and it started to attack the submarine.

"This isn't right", Emil started. "Sharks don't attack unless they smell blood. We haven't done anything."

"AC sent it after us", Chloe explained, not even noticing the shark tailing behind her, still fixated on the orange swimming ahead of her. She was going to lose track of him if she worried about the shark trying to slam itself on the back of the submarine.

"Chloe, if there's a single hole in this sub, it's not going to end well."

"We have oxygen tanks in the back, Emil."

"We're borrowing Luthorcorp property. Ms. Mercer is going to catch on to what we're doing at some point. It's not going to end well." He repeated

She kept following AC as he weaved in and out. "Emil, she's not here. If it's so serious, you can drop the pretenses and just call her Tess." She made a very narrow left turn. "But since it's not..." she trailed off, her focus split between the blip and the man swimming in front of her.

Emil glanced at the screen monitoring the submarine from the back. "There are seven sharks tailing us now, Chloe. I'd say our odds just got worse."

"What kind of doctor are you if you can't handle emergency situations?" She muttered under her breath, ignoring his plea. "AC's making them track us, he can make them stop."

"Chloe..."

She tore her eyes away from the screen for a second and looked at Emil. "If we don't find AC and make him stop, then we're dead. Understand?"

She whipped her head back to the screen instead of waiting for a response. "Look, he's slowing down." The submarine caught up right around a small underground crevice that it wouldn't be able to fit into. AC inched closer and closer towards it.

Chloe turned on the speakers linking to the microphones so that she could communicate with AC. "Aquaman, it's Watchtower. I just want to talk."

AC kept inching towards the tunnel. She couldn't see any light down there, and couldn't see an end to the tunnel when she pointed all of the submarine's lights in the direction of it.

She tried speaking to him again. "AC?"

He smiled slightly this time and started a path down the tunnel slowly.

"What is he doing?" Emil asked

She stopped the submarine from moving right outside of the tunnel, stopped it, and got up from her seat. "He wants me down there."

"How could he? He knows you can't keep up with him."

Like she couldn't keep up with Clark? What, she couldn't keep up with the League, now?

"Watch me." She said, reaching for a black wetsuit and pulling it on top of her.

"What?"

"He wants me down there. It's the only way to talk to him, supposedly. And if I let him go and follow him another time, we'll just be right back here. He wants me down there."

"Those sharks are still out there. Besides, you don't know what AC's planning, he could be trying to offer you as food."

She rolled her eyes at the dramatics. "Emil, it's AC. He got put in jail once for trying to set dolphins free. It's fine. I don't think that there's going to be any trouble, and if there is, then he'll watch out for me."

"And if he doesn't? What if he's trying to punish you?"

Then that would be just fine. Not exactly from the person she was expecting the punishment from, but it'll do.

"He won't", she said confidently as she finished zipping up and strapping the oxygen tank to her back. "Okay, these things are way more heavy than they look like on TV."

She noticed that Emil didn't offer to come with her. Figures.

"Do you even know where you are?"

She whipped out an already activated GPS screen and showed it to him. "Do you?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'll be fine", she said, stowing away the screen.

"You're still don't know how long you're going to be out there. You'll run out of air."

She wished that she had all of this concern for her wellbeing a month or two ago. Maybe even last week. Now? It was just annoying. "I'll handle it." She pulled the mask on and stepped into a soon air-tight chamber so that it could launch her outside, into the tunnel.

She pressed a couple of buttons on the wall and turned around to face Emil. Maybe it was the sudden worrying about her safety that was making her block Emil out and making her come off as cold. Whatever it was, she didn't turn around to give Dr. Hamilton a reassuring smile. She didn't turn around at all, just reached behind her and pressed the button that separated her from the submarine and into the darkness of the tunnel.

She was surprised to see AC still there when she got a sense of where she was going and started swimming in his direction.

Sharks started circling around her, preventing her from getting to him. Trying to keep the fear at bay, she looked right at AC, who was still looking at her. He stopped moving completely. Just kept floating in the middle of the ocean.

"Clark called the others together. I had nothing to do with excluding you", she started, her voice shaking slightly.

For a person with a death wish, she was suddenly feeling very scared. Maybe it was because she knew that with the slightest provoke, the sharks could rip her to pieces. Or maybe it was because she would die without having checked on Lois' security at the Planet. It was hard for Chloe to tell these days.

***Flash***

_"Stay with us, Miss Sullivan", she heard the doctor say before putting the paddles back on her body. "Clear!"_

_Her body jolted up and then back down again as the electricity tried to restart her heart._

***Flash***

_She disposed of the body and looked at her blood stained hands. Chloe slid her back down the dumpster, hiding herself from the city._

_She was doing the right thing, wasn't she? It didn't feel like it right now. She wanted to cry out, to scream, but she knew that it would only draw attention from people on the streets. She would get in trouble if someone suspected what she was up to, what she was hiding in the basement. _

_Her hands started shaking, and she felt the tears blurring the vision until the blood on her hands looked like two blobs of red. She cried behind the dumpster, trying to be as quiet as possible before pulling herself up and piling garbage on top so that nobody would notice._

_In a city full of people, she felt completely alone. And yet, she didn't want anybody to see her crying. _

***Flash***

_"He needed me."_

_"He needed you", Oliver repeated, adjusting himself slightly. "So the needs of the cornfield killer outweigh the rest of the world, is that it?"_

***Flash***

_"Let's disappear", she told Davis, plastering a fake smile on her face, her hand still holding the candy he had given her. It was a sweet gesture, but she wasn't hungry. In fact, she didn't think that she would truly be hungry ever again because of the nausea. She hoped that everybody just stayed away until this all just stopped. It wasn't safe for them right now. She needed to be here, needed to stay with him. It was the only way to save them all._

***Flash***

_"Cyborg, offline. Aquaman, offline."_

_"Wait!" She cried out. "I can fix this, I promise!"_

***Flash***

_"You have reached the voice mailbox of...Oliver Queen."_

***Flash***

_"You're taking this all too personally, Chloe", Clark told her._

***End Flash***

"She can't stay here", a voice said.

There was darkness, and as much as she wanted to open her eyes and look at her surroundings, she couldn't.

"I've never done this. You know that I didn't have a choice. She would have died."

"It's dangerous, having their kind here. You know this, Oren, and yet you bring her here?"

"She's an old friend. She needed to be healed."

"They cannot be trusted."

She was tired, so tired. She didn't want to open her eyes. She just wanted to sleep for all eternity. She wanted to call out to the voice, say that she could be trusted, that people had been trusting her for years. What was one more secret?

"There is still a human transportation device outside of the city. Your friend is alive, Oren. I suggest that she leave immediately."

She felt herself being scooped up and taken somewhere. "Where am I going?" She mumbled to the stranger, still trying to open her eyes unsuccessfully.

"Home." She recognized the voice that time. It was AC.

***Flash***

_"Home?" Clark asked. "They don't have a home."_

***End Flash***

But that wasn't true. The truth was that everyone all went their separate ways. They all went somewhere. They all had homes, except for her. She stayed right where they left her.

"I don't have a home", she whispered before blacking out again.

She woke up on her desk at Watchtower a couple of hours later, a post-it on the table and a beeping coming from one of the screens. She read it. It was in Emil's handwriting.

You ran out of air.

Great, just great. She hated being proved wrong, but that still didn't explain where she was before she landed back where she started. Chloe crumpled the note and tossed it in the trash before walking over to the monitor and smiling a little bit to herself.

AC just walked into the Clock Tower, and he was caught taking the elevator up to the penthouse on Watchtower's cameras. The Clock Tower wasn't too far from here. It was a good thing she didn't land back in Smallville.

She checked her cell phone for the time. 12:03. Quick conversation with AC, and she would still be able to make it to the Planet in time to check Lois' security. Right on schedule.

She pushed aside the gate of the elevator and stepped into the penthouse. AC was sitting on the couch.

"Looks like you moved on quickly", she started. "Even found yourself a new name."

"More like I stopped hanging around people who called me by the old one."

She glanced at the Arrow room and looked up at the monitor that she had once accessed in order to get information for her database. "So you don't miss it?"

"I never said that."

She wanted to smile, to tell him that she missed having him around. But she couldn't bring herself to do that.

She cleared her throat a little bit. "It's not your fault that everything fell apart", she started.

"I thought that they were all jokes", he interrupted.

"What?" She asked

"The fish jokes, and the ones making fun of my abilities mostly working in the water. I thought that they were all just jokes. Not serious jabs about my usefulness."

"That's not why you weren't involved."

"Isn't it?" He asked. "Bart and Dinah were needed. They were essential to whatever you guys were planning. There's nothing really that I could have done."

"Clark called them. I didn't, and neither did Oliver. Clark called members of the team without even talking to Oliver about it."

"Yeah, but would you have insisted? If you had known?"

"I would have called you in if it came down to a vote."

But not even that was true. The truth was that in an ideal situation, she would have kept everyone in the dark. That's what she tried to do for a long time. Hide Davis in the basement. The manager had no idea, and Lois was completely oblivious to the fact that she was sleeping in the same building as a Kryptonian serial killer.

All of these secrets that she was keeping, and she never told a single person willingly about her own.

The secret keeping was for their own good.

"I liked the team", AC said, shrugging his shoulders. "I liked having a team of people to talk to without having them look at me like I had all of the answers."

"Right, because of the fish jokes." She mumbled.

"Because of the name. Because I could be some dude named Arthur Curry, not the future king of Atlantis."

She was speechless. So that was where she was? Atlantis? Damn her eyes for not opening. She would have loved to see what it actually looked like.

"What happened?"

"It was my fault, I forgot." He said, sitting back down on the couch.

"Forgot what?"

"I've been around people who can breathe underwater for so long that I forgot what it was like to be around people who couldn't. I didn't know what to say to you, I assumed the worst when I saw the Luthorcorp sub."

What, did she think that she had changed sides? Started picking personal fights with him because of Doomsday? Started working with Tess to reopen 33.1 facilities? Did he know her at all?

She just wanted to talk. That was it. "I wouldn't do that."

***Flash***

_"I didn't try to kill myself, Clark. I wouldn't do that."_

***End Flash***

"I didn't know what to expect", AC continued. "And before I could make up my mind, you started drowning.

"Were you going to set those sharks on me?" She asked

"If I saw Tess Mercer, I wouldn't have hesitated."

She wouldn't have blamed him. In fact, she might have done the same thing.

"If something comes up like Doomsday again, can I call you?" she asked, suddenly

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his earpiece. "Good thing these things are waterproof, huh?"

She was a little shocked upon seeing the device, but she didn't smile, at least not genuinely.

Chloe had sent out so many distress signals, and he hadn't responded to a single one of them. Instead, he had found a way to remove the GPS tracker like everyone else. He only came back up on the grid again because of her own manual upgrade to Watchtower.

There was no point of having him around if he wasn't reliable. If he wasn't going to respond to the signals. But she needed to plaster a good old smile on her face because that was what was expected of her. She discreetly looked at the clock behind her. She was running a little bit late for her security check.

She wasn't going to run away just because AC offered a hand. Or because he was trying to connect with her, of course not. It was just the bad timing, work that she needed to get done.

"I have to take care of something, but if you ever need help, don't hesitate to ask okay?"

He held out a hand to shake, but she couldn't touch him. She turned around quickly, pretended to be absorbed in something, and headed over to the elevator, thankful that the doors opened as soon as she pressed the down button.

If he was offended by her abruptness, she couldn't see it, her own will seeming to be stronger than her vision. There was a split second when she was shutting the gate and waiting for the doors to close that she snapped back to the person that she used to be years ago.

"I'll call you, AC. If I need someone to help me cool things down."

She saw him crack a smile before the doors closed, but she couldn't return it. She suddenly felt very aware of the future that Clark spoke of before, and uncertain of what was to come.

She lit one of the empty candles on the table when she got back to the Watchtower before heading over to the Daily Planet, but she couldn't feel a thing. There was no sense of pride in a job well done. No happiness in talking to an old friend, a team member. No feeling of security or trust in his words.

This all felt wrong.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

She waited at the corner of the bullpen until Lois got up from her desk and seemed like she was going to be away for a while before sneaking up to her computer and sitting down at the chair.

She blocked out the thoughts of her old days at the bullpen. Watchtower was her life now. It was all that mattered, and she had a job to do right now. She inserted a digital replicator in one of the USBs and waited for all of Lois' data from the Daily Planet to copy over to her drive.

Chloe ran a full system security check and a window popped up: spyware detected. So Tess was keeping an eye on her cousin. Interesting. She copied over the spyware to her own drive so that she could investigate it back at the Watchtower to see exactly what precautions were necessary.

Right as it finished, she heard a voice calling her name. "Chloe?"

She looked up. "Lo!" Okay, keep calm. Lois didn't know what she was up to. The excuse for lunch was still out there just waiting to be used.

Chloe shot up from Lois' chair, her hand wandering over to the USB drive in front of her, covering the drive she had plugged in.

"You know, when I asked if we could table our talk about you know who, I meant until I got home."

Table the talk? Right, this morning. It felt like so long ago.

"Actually, the only table I'm here for is the kind they serve lunch on." Chloe started with her excuse. "I was thinking that maybe we could celebrate you getting your job back." She fit the USB between two fingers and pulled it out slowly.

"I would love to", Lois said enthusiastically before pulling Chloe away from her desk. Chloe used the opportunity to hide the device in her hand underneath her jacket pocket. "But I'm kind of already on a job. Working for you know who."

What did Clark have her working on right now? Chloe hadn't heard about anything. Clark hadn't said anything to her. "The Blur?" She asked. "Doing what, exactly?"

"Hunting down a real life terminator!" Lois sounded incredibly excited about the work.

"Lois, that sounds dangerous!" Hunting down people was Chloe's job, though. Why hadn't Clark come to her? "Why is he not doing that himself?" She asked, more to herself.

"Sometimes, heroes can't do it all on their own, Chloe", Lois said, leaving her in an elevators. "That's why they have sidekicks. Rain-check on lunch", she pointed as the doors started to close on her.

Before Chloe could tell her to be careful, the doors shut. She just blinked a couple of times as the elevator went down, feeling replaced as the sidekick of the week.

***Flash***

_"Let's just stick to the main plot, there, sidekick."_

***End Flash***

She did the only thing that she could do now. Go back to the Watchtower. Before she did, she stopped by the flower shop and picked up a bouquet of yellow roses, setting them on the desk, in front of a picture frame of Jimmy at their wedding.

She never used to buy herself flowers, but she had hoped that it would help her feel better. It just made her feel more pathetic, especially when she remembered the speedster who used to just run in with flowers to make her smile.

She booted up the traffic cam software, and tried to see if the scanners had recognized the profiles of anybody else from her old team. Finding nothing, she sighed to herself.

This was the problem with tracking down people who used to have mistakes that she helped to correct. Bart used to get caught flashing in and out of places on traffic cameras, not because he was too slow, but because he kept bumping into people as he ran around.

Dinah was easily recognizable when she stuck with only one wig, so a year or so ago, Chloe gave her an assortment of different wigs for her birthday for when she ran around in civilian wear.

The two people in the team who were directly affected during Doomsday apart from the man who originally brought them all together, and they were nowhere to be found.

There was a super-speeding sound, and she almost expected to turn around and find Bart there. But Bart wasn't there.

"Chloe, Lois has been kidnapped. I need your help."

Was he kidding? Lois was kidnapped? He got Lois kidnapped. Good job, Clark.

"Tell me that this isn't because you let her chase down that sinister cyborg all by herself."

"I told her not to get involved."

Why didn't he know that just saying that alone would get Lois more involved? If Lois was the person that he was confiding in now, why didn't he know that? "Clark, what did you think she was going to do? This is Lois!"

He looked away from her for a second.

"You know, she was just referring to herself as the Blur's sidekick!"

"I should have never called her in the first place, but I can't let anything happen to her now."

She remembered checking her voicemail somewhere between the Daily Planet and Watchtower. She listened to a message from Emil about the guy Lois was trying to track down. He had a kryptonite heart. Clark was going to get anywhere close to him.

"Well, Dr. Emil told me about this guy, and he said that he has a Kryptonite heart. Okay? You're not going to get close enough to him to do anything about it."

"He gave me this." Clark pulled a device from his pocket. "This is an EMP grenade. It'll blast an electromagnetic pulse and stop any electronic device within fifty yards. I'm hoping that it'll stop him long enough for me to get Lois to safety."

"Yeah, well, will it work against meteor rock?"

"It's a chance I'm willing to take."

There was silence between the two of them. Chloe was trying her hardest to not care too much about Clark anymore. She knew one thing, though- if Lois died because of this, if she lost her cousin because Lois got involved with something that Clark was up against when he should have come to Chloe, she would never forgive him. Or herself.

"The guy's name is John Corbin and he works at the Daily Planet."

She walked over to another monitor, leaving the global traffic cameras on and scanning for the profiles of her old team on the other side of the room. Her eyes drifted to her desk as she walked, to where she had her gun stashed. If Clark didn't save Lois, she would shoot this Corbin guy between the eyes herself.

"I can't find him anywhere", Clark said as she got to the computer and started typing.

"Clark, I wish you had come to me with this. Lois doesn't have any experience dealing with these things." He could have stopped her before she broke into a Luthorcorp facility and stole a submarine. He could have found her in a million different ways.

Chloe wasn't the one who had turned off her tracker. She made sure that it was on at all times since the funeral.

"Things have been easier with Lois lately." Clark told her. "Talking to her just felt right."

Stinging words. But her computer beeped, and she stopped thinking about the pain when she saw the work in front of her. There was a video clip. She pressed play, and turned around as it projected on the screen on the other side.

John Corbin's face appeared, and he started talking. "Hey, you know, I thought it always sounded ridiculous when people say it, but, it's kind of like having a little piece of home."

Chloe wished that she had that sometimes. A little piece of home. She didn't even bring much with her when she was on the run with Davis.

"I saw the DVDs and the notes you sent me", Corbin continued. "Awesome." Corbin looked behind him before refocusing on the camera. "I miss you. Oh, and you better be practicing at foosball also, because I'm taking back my title as soon as I get back there, alright?" He turned around again before looking back at the camera. "Do me a favor. Be safe. And be careful in the city, okay? It's not like home. Alright? I love you. Bye."

The clip ended, and while a part of Chloe wanted to think about how nice that would feel, how good it would be to have a partner, she turned her back on the screen and the idea, and started typing.

It wasn't Corbin's wife. Chloe didn't know why, but that made her feel relieved. And like less of a failure.

"That's his sister", she said. "Rebecca Corbin." A file popped up from Metropolis PD, and she opened it, reading it quickly. "She was murdered in her apartment in Metropolis three months ago while he was overseas."

She accessed another file of recent activity in the apartment building. "Wait a minute", she skimmed the page. "He bought the building a few weeks ago."

She turned around. "Maybe that's where he took Lois."

"Thanks, Chloe." Clark made a motion to speed out of there, but she stopped him.

"Wait, Clark." She tried to summon up as much care as she could. To have things be the way that they were, even if it was for a second. "Be careful."

She remembered over the years, he would give a reassuring smile or say okay. His demeanor didn't change. He just sped out and left her alone.

It wasn't as if all worry and care for Clark had completely diminished, just that Lois was new to this world and that Chloe just got her back. She just got both of them back, and while Clark was constantly in danger and Chloe just woke up a couple of hours ago after having been drowned in the middle of an ocean, the two of them chose that life.

They knew what they were fighting for, who they were fighting for. Clark suited up in his trench coat, and Chloe strapped herself into that submarine knowing that there were risks. They knew what they were doing all of this for, who they were doing all of this for.

She didn't like that Lois had gone into everything blind. She was also afraid of Lois getting hurt the same way that she did, doing everything to help Clark just for him to leave again to finish his Kryptonian training. Chloe didn't want Lois to think that the Blur was all alone when she was around in the Watchtower, a very good database available at her fingertips.

A part of Chloe also didn't want Lois to idolize Clark, thinking that he was the only one out there doing good for the world with special abilities. There was a team of them, and Chloe would put money on the idea that Oliver's little group of friends was only the beginning of people just like AC and Bart all around the world.

Most of all, Chloe was tired. She had no idea how long she was unconscious, but it couldn't have been for very long, because she was still so exhausted. She thought of refocusing on her monitors and checking out the spyware that was on Lois' computer, but knowing that Lois was kidnapped meant that she wasn't at the Daily Planet right this second.

She could get a little bit of shut-eye. Ten minutes wouldn't hurt the rest of the world, it would be alright. She went upstairs, and without even taking off her shoes or coat, she landed herself on the bed, closed her eyes, and tried to fall asleep.

But it didn't work. She was beyond exhausted, but sleep just wasn't happening for her. She went downstairs, looked around the Watchtower and spotted the flowers. She grabbed them and stared at them as she climbed the stairs again.

These flowers didn't fit, for some reason, and she couldn't put her finger on it. She bought them to cheer herself up, to maybe bring a little bit of that cheer into the Watchtower.

She looked at the vase, and thought for one second that she could see something white hanging off the end of a flower.

She blinked, and a memory flashed before her eyes of a card. She remembered the handwriting in that memory, could recognize it anywhere.

Thanks for my first unsucky Valentine's Day Love, Jimmy xoxo...

Flowers covering the entirety of the Barn, her wedding.

No. This wasn't happening. She shifted the vase so that she was only holding it with one hand and in a split second, threw the floral arrangement against the wall, watching as the glass shattered upon contact, the flowers falling onto the floor, shards of glass falling on top of them.

She looked at what she had done, and wanted so badly to just start crying. To let all of the pain go, but she knew that it wasn't going to help. Crying didn't do anything to her except make her eyes puffy, her head spin with emotions, and render her useless to do any work.

She wanted to tell herself to forget about the work, to forget about Lois' computer, Watchtower and tracking down the rest of the team. To just take a couple of minutes to mourn and hope to feel better later.

But her phone started vibrating. She let out a curse and wanted to throw her phone at the wall too, but when she pulled it out of her pocket, she saw that it was Lois. Lois was family.

She cleared her throat a couple of times before pressing the accept button. "Lois, are you okay? Are you safe?"

"Chloe, I'm fine. I'm not exactly sure how, I mean, I was kidnapped and attacked, but I woke up on the floor, and there he was!"

"Who?" She asked innocently

"The Blur! There he was, just standing in the shadows. He saved me. And even when I was in trouble, even when I thought I wasn't going to make it, there he was. He was right in front of me."

"Of course he was", Chloe said with a slight tone of bitterness in her voice. "Did you see him?" She asked, not sure if she even wanted to know the answer.

"I couldn't make out his face. I asked him, but he just did his thing and pulled a disappearing act on me."

She let out a sigh of relief as she headed down the stairs. "Lois, I'm just glad you're okay. I'm coming home right now."

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Okay", Chloe answered. "I'll see you soon."

She ended the call as she made it to the end of the stairs when she saw Clark standing there, looking out of the window.

Well, this was a first. Clark didn't usually like to stick around and chat these days.

"Clark." She acknowledged.

"This view really puts things in perspective."

Puts what in perspective? Was this Clark trying to fix what seemed to be their dying friendship?

"Jimmy knew exactly what he was doing when he bought this place." He continued.

A part of her got very mad very quickly, just hearing that name from his mouth. After what he refused to do for her.

She wanted to kick him out right then and there, but she approached him cautiously instead, hoping that maybe he was bringing up Jimmy to make amends.

She looked out the window too. And for some reason, this felt okay. This felt a little bit like when she used to hang out at the Barn and talk to him.

She remembered when he first controlled his super-sneeze. He blow a puff of air out of the Barn, and what was a cloudy day ended up being sunshine with clear skies. She wished that he could clear up the clouds right now. But maybe it started with her offering a slight assistance.

She took a deep breath, hoping that she wouldn't be disappointed. "I really miss him", she admitted, looking straight ahead and not looking at Clark.

"I took the easy way out, Chloe."

With what?

"I should have been there when you needed me. I'm sorry", he said.

Yes. You should have. But even though she wanted to yell at him, to scream, the triple filter took over, and she tried to be understanding.

"Clark, there's nothing easy about burying everyone you love in your past." She said.

"I'm afraid I haven't even done a very good job of that."

So when she was yelling at him in the Barn earlier, a part of him was listening. She wasn't lying when she told him that it seemed like he was blocking out the world when it suited him. She was still mad at him. But a little bit of acceptance of the consequences was a step in the right direction.

He turned away from her. "I've been trying to fill the void by hanging around on rooftops, eavesdropping on people. People who are connecting, living. Thinking what's the point of protecting life if you've lost your sense on how to live it. Maybe I can't do this, Chloe. Maybe I can't completely stay away."

Chloe realized that this wasn't about the world at all. Yes, Clark was talking about not staying away from people who were connecting, but he meant a specific person.

The only reason that he was telling her all of this was because he couldn't talk to Lois about his feelings for her. Not yet, anyway.

"Stay away from her, you mean" she clarified.

He shot her a confused look.

"Lois means something to you, something more", she said, hiding the bitterness.

***Flash***

_"News Flash: you've always been in love with Lana! It's like fate, Clark", Chloe told him. "Inevitable, but always surprising when it actually happens."_

***End Flash***

"So does this mean that Clark Kent is coming back for an encore?" She asked him

"I don't know. But I can't let that life interfere with my training again."

But life had already interfered. All of that training, and he was still speeding in and out instead of flying out. Maybe he _could_ fly, and she didn't know about it, there was no way for her to tell.

The real truth, though, was that she was disappointed in him. She never agreed with his decision to block everybody out, but she encouraged him to do it if that was what it took to make a difference.

Chloe had done the same, but it looked like lurking around the city in the silence was working for her. The two of them used to approach situations together. They brainstormed, figured things out, broke a couple of cyber laws to get the information that they needed, and saved the day. For the most part, they were on the same wavelength.

For what seemed like the first time, a method that worked for Chloe didn't work for Clark. Even if she was just following his lead.

There needed to be some excuse that she could come up with to verify Clark's seemingly emotional weaknesses in her head. She looked over at the drive at one of the computers.

Lois needed very close surveillance at the Daily Planet, and if Clark wanted to keep talking to her as the Blur, the closest thing to around the clock protection as well.

Besides, there was the chance that Clark might actually stick around if it was for Lois.

"Clark, lurking around building edges pining after the life you gave up isn't exactly amping your hero performance either."

***Flash***

_"Clark's very lucky to have a friend like you. All that integrity." Lionel got up and started to walk away, but on his way out of the Torch, he stopped at where she was standing. "I wonder, though", he turned his head to the side to face her. "If he had to make a choice, would he sacrifice his dream? Out of loyalty to you?"_

***End Flash***

She let out a small chuckle at the ridiculousness of what she was about to say. "You know, maybe I was naive to think that you could just turn a corner and never look back. But either way, Kal-el needs his human disguise now more than ever." She told him, starting to explain her excuse for him.

"Why do you say that?"

She walked past him to the desk where the drive was, feeling the emotions and past quickly being diluted by the necessary business talk. "I went to the Daily Planet to take a look at Lois' computer and found that Tess had loaded it up with serious spyware."

"You mean, she didn't hire Lois out of the goodness of her heart."

Of course not. It was just like she had said to Emil in that submarine. Luthorcorp is always up to something. That wasn't going to change.

"No, she wanted to find out where Lois has been the last three weeks. Now if she figures out"

"-that she was in the future? And brought back a kryptonian who says that I'll end the world..." he trailed off.

"Tess already knows way too much about you. We can't let her get to Lois' memories before you do." To Tess, Lois was just a memory containing vessel to be extracted. And in order to get there first, Chloe needed to be able to see her the same way.

"I'll see what I can do", he said before speeding away.

She almost ignored the absence, and turned back to her computers. She set him up with a project. Now it was time for her to get down to work on her own.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

***Flash***

_"So, have you heard from Jimmy lately?" Davis asked casually_

_She set down the napkin, fork still in her hand as she looked at him for a second before answering and setting up. "His last tirade of emails included every unflattering word in the dictionary, including some that didn't get past the censors."_

_"I thought he'd be dying to get back together with you."_

_"I believe that the last phrase he used was 'Don't call me, don't come by, and if you email me, I won't open it.'"_

_"Ouch."_

***Flash***

_"There's something about being around you that seems to calm the murderer inside me."_

***End Flash***

Beep.

"Profile scan activated. Found: Clark Kent."

Yeah, yeah. Clark was patrolling while pulling a late night at the Planet with Lois. Chloe didn't want the Watchtower to wake her up with something that she already knew.

Sleep was rare. This little bit of it was rare, and concerning, but she wasn't flying awake in a cold sweat. Yet.

"Profile scan activated. Found: Oliver Queen."

What?

Her head snapped up from her desk, and ignoring her sore neck, she placed two fingers on the touch screen on the table and expanded the image so that it could project onto the screen.

So much for not flying awake.

Metropolis' traffic cams picked up on Oliver, and there was some video footage.

She got up from her seat and pressed play.

Oliver pulled off some sort of helmet. It looked like he was using a motorcycle to get around these days. But not the tricked out green one that he used when he was in Arrow mode. This one was red.

"Oliver", Clark acknowledged, a bit surprised.

Okay, so Chloe wasn't a terrible Watchtower. Clark didn't mean to find him. It was an accident. She was both a little mad at Clark for not taking an hour of his time to speed around and look for everyone and grateful that he hadn't. It gave her a job.

"Is this your idea of fun now that you've hung up your bow?" He asked

"Should have known it was you. Clark Kent, king of buzz-kill."

Why was Oliver looking for a buzz in the first place? Riding around a motorcycle never used to give him the right kind of buzz. She knew that Oliver's idea of a rush was blowing up a 33.1 facility and rescuing meta-humans.

"You and your pet rock put up a hell of a barbecue. But I had my money on Doomsday, so..."

So until that Kryptonian broke up his little cage fighting party, Oliver thought that Clark died in the geothermal explosion. Must have been some sort of shock for him, not knowing. She tried to talk to Oliver so many times, but it never worked.

She had half of a mind to track down where they were right this second and find him. But the way he was talking to Clark right now, she didn't think that she wanted to. Her only job right now was to keep an eye on him.

"You try to play it off as a joke, but I know that the loss of Jimmy affected us both."

Jimmy's death affected Clark? Made him stick around Metropolis because he knew that the loss affected her as well? And made him want to track down everyone else in the team to make sure that they knew that it wasn't their fault?

"Well, I guess God's got a sick sense of humor", Oliver answered. "Oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't be taking your name in vain."

"What, you need to hear me say it?" Clark said, walking closer to him. "I should have listened to you. I should have gotten rid of Davis instead of believing in him."

Chloe knew that wasn't what Oliver needed to hear. Doomsday wasn't a fight between two little kids over a toy. I was right, no I was right. It was too late for that, and even though it was all said and done, Clark still refused to make it right.

Oliver was numb- he couldn't feel anything. She understood, she didn't feel much these days either. It was better that way. She wasn't in any mood to go speeding off in a Ducati anytime soon, but she understood.

Oliver turned around and walked back towards the motorcycle. Chloe could see him trying to steady himself a little bit from the camera. His body was shaking a little bit. "It's a little late."

"I'm trying to make up for what happened, not add myself to the casualty list", Clark said as Oliver got back on the motorcycle.

"Yeah, well, I can't get my thrills leaping tall buildings or outrunning speeding bullets. We mere mortals, we have a rely on a tweaked out Ducati and the open road."

Or a zip-line. Trick arrows. That kind of thing.

"You know that you're meant for more than this. This isn't you."

But Chloe knew that if Clark had really meant that, he wouldn't be saying it to Oliver after finding him by mistake. He would have looked for him, tried to talk sense into him. And it would have been a hell of a lot sooner than now. Doomsday seemed like a lifetime ago for Chloe. And with the drastic change in Oliver's demeanor, it seemed like a lifetime ago for him too.

"Who are you? Huh?" He asked before gesturing to Clark's trench coat. "What's all this? What does the S stand for, huh? What's that, super star?"

Who and what. Good questions. She was half-waiting for him to ask why. Why now?

"It gives people hope."

He looked towards the camera, and for a split second, Chloe thought that he was looking right at her.

"I'll tell you what, Clark. Why don't you plaster your symbol of superiority all over the city so that people can worship you like some sort of modern Jesus. That's what you want, right? It's why you're here? You're here to save us?"

"You need help."

Oliver shook his head. "Yeah, well, I hate to break it to you, but not everybody believes in the second coming." He put on his helmet again and sped off, ignoring the police car that was in his way. The cop car turned around and followed him.

Chloe watched from nearby traffic cameras as Oliver silently accepted the speeding ticket and drove off. She walked over to a monitor and started hacking into the Metropolis PD database. She had no idea why she was doing it, but she erased all records of the speeding ticket.

Oliver Queen wasn't most people. A speeding ticket wasn't going to give him a kick in the face or a slap of reality. If he hadn't just been told off by Clark, he probably would have laughed in the cop's face and thrown a wad of hundreds at his face before speeding off.

A part of Chloe couldn't believe what she had just seen. Oliver was supposed to be the strong one, the one who always made Clark doubt that the work that he was doing was enough.

***Flash***

_She was in Oliver's jet pulling up information in Winslow Schott when Clark sped in. _

_"Chloe", he said, surprised to see her there. "What are you doing here?"_

_She laughed a little awkwardly, looking for a background story. "Well, you know Oliver. Even the blast of a bomb won't rattle his work-ethic. He asked me to come in and pull some of the files from the Luthorcorp deal."_

_Clark nodded his head. "That's funny. Because I would think that Queen Industries could free up at least one employee to run his errands for him."_

_So now that Lana was back in his life, and Lois was there as a back-up plan, Chloe didn't have any importance anymore. Yeah, she got it. "Yeah, well, I'm not exactly a brink security truck, but Oliver knows that he can trust me."_

_"I thought I could too."_

***End Flash***

She ordered Chinese takeout while pulling up traffic cameras from the globe that had been recorded and saved to Watchtower's database throughout the day. Hours of footage that needed to run through her profiling software in case someone had slipped up. She took comfort watching the footage.

Most people just watched the television. Chloe Sullivan watched traffic cameras and video feeds from the world. She read international newspapers that were translated into English in case something suspicious came up, and all the while trying to stop herself from thinking that if something big did happen, she wouldn't have much of a team to run a mission.

This was how she lived, and she liked it. She didn't think about the old days of all-nighters at the Daily Planet or Torch. She didn't think about the Wall of Weird too much, or how she scared her old roommate from Metropolis University away with it.

The Wall of Weird was old news. Her life was digitized now. Interactions with people were minimal.

Clark Kent used to listen in on conversations from rooftops in order to see other people connecting. Chloe watched the video feeds. And there was a sense of pride that she felt in knowing that she could stay away from people while Clark broke away from his mission and went back to the Daily Planet.

He swore up and down that Clark Kent was dead, that the human didn't matter anymore. She had a feeling before that he said that only when it suited him, and she ended up being right.

Her happiness didn't stem from the fact that she knew Clark as a person. Her happiness was a direct result of knowing that her knowledge was correct. That her database was sound, and that she was right.

She disappeared from the Watchtower for five minutes to pick up coffee and Chinese food. When she came back, she planted herself at her desk and watched the footage for hours, getting up only to reheat the containers when they got cold.

It was ordinary for a while, people meeting each other for a brief get together before work, they power-walked to work, fifty minutes later, they started running because they were late to work. They went to lunch, dinner, and went home.

And then, somewhere in Arizona, there was an interruption in the video feed.

She rewound the feed and played it again, to be sure that her eyes weren't just drifting off. The interruption was still there.

The feeds never do that.

Before she could investigate it, the double doors opened. It was Emil.

She quickly reached out for the touch screen at the desk and projected an ordinary image on the screen before he could catch onto what she was doing.

"Hey", she acknowledged, controlling the panic and adrenaline that suddenly rushed through her body. "Care for a little lo mein?" She grabbed the carton and held it out, adding an extra wide smile so that he stayed oblivious.

She knew that he wouldn't say yes, but the action of offering it was a friendly gesture. Made him less susceptible to start a questioning.

"I just came from that Korean macrobiotic place. They do an exquisite kelp salad."

Kelp? Really? She retracted the carton, trying not to look grossed out.

He looked at the screen, where a rescue chopper was flying down to some forest. She wasn't as interested in that as she was in the disturbance in the Arizona feed. The second Emil left to do something or another, she was definitely going to have to take a closer look at that.

"Chloe, I couldn't help but notice that you practically jumped out of your chair when I came in here."

She looked at him. She wasn't going to deny it, but she wasn't going to tell him what she was up to either. A month didn't give a person full disclosure.

Neither did a decade.

"I would prefer if there were no secrets between us."

Chloe looked right at him and smiled at how new he was to all of this. He should have known by now that needs were not what mattered anymore.

"Then you're in the wrong business."


	12. Chapter 12

Again, Chapter Twelve

She knew that Emil wanted more detail than that, but before he could prod into her business with a verbal stick, Clark sped into the room. So much for not getting distracted and looking into the disturbance in the feeds.

"Chloe, I need your help."

Of course there was no time for pleasantries.

He handed her a yellow box. "Can you run a blood test on this?" he asked

She opened it up and saw the vial of blood. "It belongs to Tess Mercer", Clark continued. "She was infected with something. Lois and I went to go see her at Met Gen. She attacked us both."

The infection was interesting, but not enough to spark an interest to distract her from tracking down the team. Try harder, kid.

"And that's different from any other day, how?" she asked, closing the box and placing it on the desk.

"We'll get right on it." Emil said, taking the box and opening it up.

Oh no, you don't. Emil wasn't better than her, and as far as she was concerned, he hadn't earned his stripes quite yet. If it hadn't been for her determination and asking him to make a quick decision, he probably wouldn't have stuck around in that submarine the day they found AC.

It wasn't the first time she broke through Luthor mansion security and took a look around. "Already in there", she said, pressing a couple of keys and looking up at the screen in front of her.

She saw three men stumbling around a corridor in the mansion. "It looks like she had some visitors this evening", she said out loud. One of them faced the camera, and she froze the image.

It wasn't the normal type of human. It wasn't a human at all. "And not the friendly kind" she finished.

"Viral rage", she heard Emil say. "Can be traced to a dysfunctional anterior singular cortex- the part of the brain that controls the primitive fight or flight instinct. Leaving the victims vulnerable to hyper aggression."

She nodded and started typing, trying to access the Disease Control Agency database to try and get more information. She couldn't get in.

How was that possible? How was she not able to get in somewhere? She wanted to work on it, but Clark and Emil needed the information right now. She didn't want to make it look like something defeated her- it would be more obvious if she put all of her effort in it right now and then failed.

"The DCA's site is pretty impenetrable", she muttered as the log in screen popped up. Employees only. Damn it.

"That's okay", Clark told her. She looked at him. Maybe she was reading too much into it, but it was almost like he was dismissing any information that she could offer him.

She knew that there was one person who never did that. She was never sure if it was because Oliver genuinely trusted her or because it was her job to make sure that her information was sound, but from the second he tossed her a headset at his penthouse the first time she ran a mission with him to break Clark and Bart out of a 33.1 facility, things just seemed to run differently. He had a lot more confidence in himself and in her.

The instant that Jimmy broke things off with her back when she worked at the Daily Planet, she called Oliver, uncertain if he even remembered beyond the fact that she was related to Lois. She remembered that the first thing he said to her.

I knew you would call eventually.

"The Disease Control Agency sent in a specialist today", Clark said, bringing her back to reality. He was looking at Emil. "Do you think you can get something out of him?"

"I can try. It'll take me at least a half hour to cross town."

Clark walked over to him. "Do you get motion sickness?"

She knew what was coming next. A good old super-speeding adventure. "Not really, why do you ask?" Emil asked

Clark put a hand on his shoulder and then they were both gone.

"Really?" she said out loud at the ridiculousness of it all. Typical Clark, always pulling a disappearing act, this time bringing Emil along for the ride.

***Flash***

_She was freezing there, shivering to death. But she knew that as long as Clark was here, she would make it out alive. Somehow._

_"Hey", she said, freezing. "I think it's time you switched into Super-Clark mode now."_

_"Super Clark?"_

_"I know you run faster than a speeding bullet, Clark. Take me along for the ride."_

***End Flash***

Five minutes in the Watchtower and he barely spoke to her. And now, she was all alone again.

She shook her head a little bit. All this time, trying to block out her emotions, and sometimes pieces of her memories bled through.

Instead of mourning the absence, she promised herself that by the end of the week, she would have that database cracked, create a backdoor in, and never have to worry about gaining access into the Disease Control Agency database again.

But she wanted to take advantage of the quiet first. Take a look at that video feed disturbance.

She pulled up the screen of the disturbance, and froze it right at the moment of the interruption. She zoomed in, and rewound the footage, playing it back slowly.

She hoped that she would be able to catch a glimpse of something there, but there was nothing. The entirety of the screen became too blurry for her to make out anything, not even definitive colors to match with shapes.

She pulled up the feed of the previous day at this location, and found that there wasn't anything truly special about the area. Edge of Arizona, groups of people walking by. People laughing, smiling, some of them were normal, others were sad.

What was special about this place that made it blur the next day?

She pulled up the satellite view of the place and ran it through her database to find an address, eating some of the Chinese food that had gotten cold once more while she waited.

There was a beeping noise as she finished the last of the lo mein, and she dumped the carton in the trash before turning to the monitor.

The area was on the border of Mexico and Arizona. It was right next to a taco stand.

She remembered only one team member with an almost sickening addiction to Mexican food, and it was because even though it was terrible for him, it stuck around his system longer so that he didn't have to constantly refuel as he sped around.

But even if Bart was in Arizona, there was no reason for the image to behave the way that it did. She remembered watching Bart speed around on cameras before, she used to spend a large chunk of time after missions searching for the team on footage- she knew that if she slowed it down enough, she would see him.

But it was more than that this time. This time the entire place blurred so that she couldn't even see him. Not even a little flash of red. Which meant that the footage that was here was replaced by something else that was altered a little bit. Bart tracked down Victor, and he helped him to stay away invisible.

AC was a mixture of depressed and angry for not being told what was going on. She knew that before Oliver found Victor, he was depressed and mildly suicidal. Chloe knew him well enough to know that he would fight himself to make sure that he wasn't going to get back to that place again. Instead of being depressed now, Victor was pissed off.

Bart and Victor were working together. Bart probably felt like a killer, and Victor probably felt abandoned. She was Watchtower, she was supposed to be on top of things like this. Why had it taken so long for her to pick up on a stupid footage change? They had probably been doing this for a while, now.

They probably knew that she would be looking. They were freezing her out on purpose. Just like Oliver did.

***Flash***

_"I figured if you wanted to tell me you were part of the super-powered persuasion, you would when you were ready", she told Clark. "On your terms, not on mine."_

_He looked out the window. "You're a good friend, Chloe."_

_She looked down. "Obviously, not good enough."_

***End Flash***

She loaded up the coordinates on her phone and grabbed her jacket. She had an address now, and Bart had to show up at some point. When he did, she would be ready. She would call up Oliver's pilot and have him take her, it wouldn't be a big deal because his resources were still up for grabs.

She was about to shut down the computers when she heard a voice coming from upstairs. It was a woman's. "I know I was supposed to get this back to you after I checked your license, but...couldn't help myself."

She reached for a gun and loaded it before heading up the stairs. Platinum cards? What the hell was going on?

She looked at a computer that suddenly turned on with video footage as she heard some flipping. The footage was of some sort of floor right now. Chloe moved around the angles and saw a woman in a police uniform pulling out Lois' picture. "But I bet this is the most valuable one of all."

A hand reached for the picture and held it in place. Chloe could see the bottom edges of it.

There was a voice clearing. "She's...someone I used to know."

Oliver's voice. It was the belt buckle camera. It felt like a year since she installed the spyware, and it finally picked up on something.

Oliver kept Lois' picture in his wallet. Chloe had no idea why that little fact bugged her.

She suddenly focused all of her attention on the small bottle of pills that Oliver grabbed and uncapped and barely heard the woman speaking to him. "Hey, watch it. Just because I let that speeding ticket slide doesn't mean that you can speed in here."

Great, Oliver was on crystal meth. The cop was lying. She did write a speeding ticket- Chloe just got rid of it.

So much for honesty in relationships. The woman Oliver was with was probably going to try and get rid of the evidence once she got back to work. She hoped the bimbo scratched her head later, wondering what happened to it.

"Well, I apologize, Officer. Don't shoot", Oliver said, grabbing something from the woman. "But I've been up, since, 4:00 on Tuesday, so those pills right now are the only things keeping me vertical right now."

Suddenly, Chloe couldn't see anything. There was darkness in her feed all of a sudden, and she wondered why that was. Maybe she was losing her footage? She started typing on the computer. There wasn't nothing wrong with the footage, supposedly, but how could that be?

And then she heard some muffled kissing noises before something slammed against a wall.

Oh.

Maybe she should give them some privacy. She wanted to, but for some reason, her fingers couldn't move.

There was a clattering noise, and the video footage returned, this time of the ceiling.

Did he get rid of it on purpose? Did he catch on to her?

"It's fine, just leave it." Oliver said.

She saw the brown haired woman's face, and her voice. "Is this a camera?"

Shit.

"What?" Oliver asked, taking it from the woman. Chloe saw him looking right in the lens, the smile on his face fading instantly. "It's some kind of spyware."

Okay, so Oliver didn't know that it existed before. But he did now.

There silence for a moment before Oliver spoke again. "Well, it's not mine. I've never seen this."

"Right", the woman said offended. "And it just accidentally got caught in your belt buckle?"

The camera shifted from his hand to hers. "So you could what?" She continued. "Plaster my butt on Youtube like Pamela Anderson?"

The buckle landed on the table, and Chloe couldn't see anything. But that didn't mean that she didn't have ears.

"Okay, well first of all, no one's on Youtube, looking at Pamela Anderson's butt", Oliver said with a chuckle.

"Don't call or email", the woman said.

"Don't worry, I never do." He answered immediately.

She cringed a little bit at his response as the woman slapped him and walked away.

The buckle was picked up by Oliver again, and then the view turned to the floor.

She wondered if he would figure out that it was her. If he would actually come over here and talk to her, or call her phone for a change.

And then he said one word that made her just disappointed in him.

"Mercy."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

When she came downstairs, the first thing that she saw was that goddamn monitor showing the feed of the goddamn taco stand over and over again.

She spent every second of her life trying to control her emotions, to control everything that she said, the triple filter.

She didn't know why, but watching Oliver Queen on her monitor upstairs for five minutes, and all of a sudden, she was so pissed off she couldn't control it. She was so mad that he didn't figure out that it was her, that he didn't decide to come over and confront her.

She wanted to take it out on the equipment. To take the gun that she had a firm grip on underneath her pillow every night she slept at the Watchtower and shoot every single monitor here. Or throw it on the ground.

She remembered years ago taking a hammer to someone's laptop in order to protect Clark's secret. And now she wanted to take a hammer to the monitor of a stupid taco stand. Instead, she started angrily pacing back and forth, staring at the blurring image of the stand the entire time.

They were all either avoiding her or they forgot all about her.

***Flash***

_"She left when I was five", Chloe said, trying to focus on the article she was doing research for and still trying to stay chipper while she was talking to Clark. "I came downstairs and there was my dad, trying to make waffles", she said with a laugh. "He never really explained why she left. It was weird."_

_She rolled her eyes at her father's words from the past and from the outside, it must have looked like her mother's absence didn't still hurt. But it still did, years later. _

_"I'm sorry", Clark said softly. _

_"It's just hard thinking that you weren't good enough for someone to love."_

_She said the words with what little smile she had left. Clark held her hand. "Don't ever think that."_

***End Flash***

Too late.

But there was nothing that she could do about it now except for force her way back into all of their lives. She kept the screen up, and walked over to a nearby monitor and started typing until twenty minutes passed and she isolated an enzyme from Tess' blood. All she needed to do was find some sort of match for it and she could come up with a cure.

Come up with a cure, and Clark's little detective project could come to a close and Chloe could work on finding the new dynamic duo that was Bart and Victor.

She ran the enzyme through a global database. Billions upon billions of people on the globe, and all she had to do was find one that had a match. If that was the case, then why was it taking so long?

She glanced over at the taco stand as the traffic cameras showed people walking past it as the monitor in front of her let out a beep and a window popped up.

No match.

Just the cherry on top of a fantastic day.

She let out a sigh when she heard footsteps approaching. She turned around and saw Emil.

"Hey", she greeted. "I've isolated a suspect enzyme from Tess' blood, but I still haven't been able to find a match", she reported. "Anything new from the DCA?"

"No, just that the virus is airborne and might have been deliberately released from someone."

Well, that was a waste of a trip. Had she been able to access the database, she would have been able to tell him that.

Emil slid the keyboard over to his hands and uploaded a map. What, he was taking over now, because she couldn't get into somewhere from the comfort of the Watchtower?

She ignored her frustration, and examined the screen that popped up. "As you can see, I've created a model of a virus path", Emil said. She watched as the model crept out from the rest of the city, the rest of the state, and then the rest of the country within a couple of hours.

She turned away from the monitor, and took a deep breath. As much as she wanted to find the team, stopping the virus seemed to be more important. She had spent all of this time worrying about getting into databases and finding more about what was going on in Arizona.

"Doctor Coates said the virus induces sleep so that it can germinate", she heard Emil say.

If she didn't stop this virus from spreading, it would infect everyone. The team, the rest of the world. While Clark and Emil were running around hospitals and the Daily Planet trying to figure out what was going on, she was thinking about Arizona and tracking down the rest of the team.

She brushed Clark off a little bit when he brought in the blood sample, thought that Tess was just being her usual charming self until she watched the video feed.

Chloe made a mental note to add Luthor mansion to the list of video feeds that she watched on a daily basis. If she kept a close eye on the mansion like she did on a muffled and dark belt camera, AC's tracking blip, the Clock Tower, and a mostly empty and dark Barn, then she would have been able to spot what was going on the instant crazy monsters intruded.

They only had hours until everyone was infected. She needed to hit thousands of people with the cure- it wasn't like she could just run up to everyone and inject them with a cure, even if they did already have what they needed to make it. If it germinated during sleep, then that meant breaking into a lot of houses and disturbing a lot of sleeping people.

Not having a cure right now was on her. She couldn't find a match in the database.

"If we could just mimic the enzyme", she said aloud, turning around, looking at the monitor.

"We can create an antidote. We just need to find the right blood match", he said, typing.

She already looked through the database- she couldn't find anything, so that idea was a bust.

Emil kept typing away at the computer. She would be incredibly mad at herself if he came up with someone in some weird distant country as a blood match and she couldn't.

"Huh", Emil started. "I've only ever seen an enzyme like that once before."

Okay, if he was going to recognize the enzyme, then that was okay. He was a doctor, after all.

It just gave her something to add to the very long to-do list that she had. Be able to recognize enzymes on sight.

Emil turned to face her. "In Davis Bloome."

"So if we need the enzyme from a Kryptonian, then we need the blood of another one. It should be able to do the trick."

"We'll never be able to penetrate the skin", Emil said.

Of course they could. A little bit of kryptonite would be fine. The only way to avoid any kind of infection though, would be if the needle they were injecting him with was dipped in liquid kryptonite instead of just hitting him with a blunt meteor rock.

It wasn't like she had a kryptonite blade or needle hanging around at Watchtower.

"I don't suppose you have any liquid meteor rock hanging around your labs?" She asked Dr. Hamilton

"No."

***Flash***

_"You found a way to kill him, didn't you?" She asked Oliver. "And Clark wouldn't go along with it."_

_Oliver shook his head. He was about to explain, but Dinah stepped forward. She watched as he just looked down at the device he was carrying. "No. Clark wanted to play devil's advocate with the actual devil. Split the kryptonian from the human."_

**End Flash***

There had to be some sort of way that Oliver and the rest of the team got Clark out of the way when they kidnapped her and Davis. Just to disarm him.

"You checked Star Labs? There's nothing?" She asked

"Oliver didn't want anybody on the team to feel as if he was experimenting with meteor rock."

"Of course not, that's what Lex was there for." Except most of the labs were closed and Chloe didn't have the support system to break into a facility right now.

If there wasn't anything in Star Labs, then there had to be something in Oliver's gear. "Doesn't Oliver have some sort of kryptonite dart or arrow? Did he ever go to you for the design?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

Then what the hell good was Emil, if he wasn't aware of these things?

As far as Chloe could see, there were only three options. Option one was that they break into one of Lex's old facilities for the refined meteor rock. Except for the fact that they mostly had more security than she liked, they had no help or support either on site or backup waiting at the Watchtower or Clock Tower to come in times of trouble.

Option two was that she could make her own refined meteor rock. She would need to borrow a couple of Oliver's scientists at Star Labs, and it would take a lot of time to dig for the meteor rock and bring it over there. She would need a whole excavation team just to get enough raw material to get a little bit of liquid kryptonite. By the time she got a team together and a single vial ready, time would be gone.

Option three was breaking into the Arrow room and finding the liquid kryptonite from his gear. She could probably break into the security system of the room.

_I need you to help me die._

She knew that there was a building with pretty much a built in liquid kryptonite shower. And all they needed was a vial.

"Set everything up so that it'll be ready. I'll be back in twenty minutes", she said, grabbing her jacket and bag.

"I'll come with you. It's not safe out there."

She didn't want company for this little errand. "I'll be fine", she assured him.

"Well, we need to make sure that we get that cure out as soon as possible. Those monsters are still roaming around the city."

"I have a stun gun and an actual gun. I can handle it."

She opened the double doors and took the stairs. She didn't want to risk the time that it took for the elevator doors to open.

She really didn't want Emil there at the lab where she unsuccessfully killed Davis Bloome. She'd be better off giving Clark or Oliver a tour of the Talon basement.

She stepped outside and realized that she gave Emil a twenty minute time interval, but she had no car and the lab wasn't exactly accessible by public bus or close to a subway station. And she couldn't walk the whole way there and back.

She flagged down a speeding taxi, and got in quickly. She pulled out her credit card and verbalized an address to the very silent cab driver who nodded and started driving.

"Do you not speak English or something?" she asked the driver bluntly five minutes later

There was no sound. She tried to get a closer look at the driver, but all she saw was a head of hair and a black baseball cap.

Quiet car rides were annoying, especially if there was another person in the car with her.

"Can I assume that you don't?"

Maybe a sense of catharsis would be better for her. "I've been having a really shitty couple of days." She let out a laugh. "Actually, a couple of months."

"It's just..."

The car stopped suddenly, and she looked out the window. They were in the middle of nowhere. They weren't at the lab yet. "Are you lost or something?" she asked

"Excuse me?" She tried again

Suddenly, the man turned his head around and leapt towards the back seat, grabbing a hold of Chloe's neck and pushing her head down. Her bag was on the other side of the car. The bag that held both her taser and gun.

She thought that it might appear a little threatening if a cab driver saw her with a gun. Now, she was re-evaluating her decision as the monster was trying to strangle her.

Okay, the most important thing was to keep calm. And get this goddamn thing off of her. She pushed her feet up and kicked the monster out of the way. In the split second that the monster was pushed to the other side of the car, she scrambled to grab her bag and put her hand around the gun before taking it out of the bag.

She loaded the gun as the guy started his way back towards her and she pulled the trigger. She tried to catch her breath while she opened the door and pushed the guy out of the car.

She shut the door and climbed over to the driver's seat, grabbing her phone and loading the GPS coordinates, holding her gun to the steering wheel as she drove.

She stepped into the lab and took a deep breath, staring at glass case as she approached it. There were grease marks on the glass where she at one point placed her hand.

_I finally found a way out of this, don't take that away from me. Please. Pull the lever, Chloe. _

She remembered watching Davis' eyes turn red, remembered him about to break through the glass and attack Clark. She spent so much time staring at the lever then, trying to stall for more time so that she wouldn't kill Davis. But when she actually did, it was a split-second decision.

Chloe pulled the lever gently again, now. let a little bit of liquid kryptonite flow from the jets for a couple of seconds before bringing it back up.

She walked over to the door and opened it a crack, pulling out a container and scooping it into the liquid kryptonite before covering it and putting it back in her bag.

She drove the cab back to the Watchtower and hurried inside. "I've got it."

"Are you okay?" Emil asked

"Fine", she brushed off his concern, reaching for her cell phone and typing out a text to Clark: Need you at Watchtower. She reached in her bag and pulled out the lead case with the liquid kryptonite container and poured it into a small vial.

"Chloe, I found the antidote, but we're running out of time. Where's this mystery extraterrestrial specimen with Davis Bloome's bloodtype?"

Clark sped in before she could answer. "You're looking at him", he said.

"Well, that explains a lot", Emil said.

"How do you expect to draw my blood? There's no needle that can puncture my skin."

Emil looked at her. Yes, she had the answers. But Clark didn't need to know where she got the liquid kryptonite.

"Dr. Emil has a contact as Luthorcorp Labs who sent over some liquid kryptonite. We dip the needle in this and it'll penetrate your skin."

She ignored the confused look that Emil shot her. So she fibbed a little bit. It didn't matter.

She watched as Clark set him up and dipped the needle in the container she brought.

"Here we go." Emil said before bringing the needle to Clark's arm.

He started yelling the moment the needle hit him.

She shouldn't have been so concerned. She knew what the kryptonite would do to him, didn't think much of it before. But now? She just wanted Emil to get the blood and stop the screaming.

"You were right. The reaction's quite intense." Emil said

Quite intense?

To her, it wasn't just Clark that was screaming. She heard Davis in that glass chamber before there was so much kryptonite that he slid down and started shaking.

She heard Jimmy yelling in pain as he ran forward in the Watchtower to stab Davis with the pole that was already stuck in his body.

She heard Bart being thrown to the side as the Kryptonian side of Davis caught up with him and launched him to the other side of the room.

All of them were screaming in her head with Clark. And she couldn't take it.

"Get it out of him", she said quickly, suddenly unable to breathe.

***Flash***

_"Chloe!" She heard Oliver call out her name as she ran forward with the Black Kryptonite. "No!"_

***End Flash***

He put a hand on her arm. "No, we need more blood."

***Flash***

_"Davis, don't be a martyr!" Clark called out_

_"That's not what this is, Clark", she told him._

_"I'm not doing this for you", Davis told Clark. "I want this to end. I can't __**live**__ with myself."_

***End Flash***

She watched Clark wheezing until he passed out.

"No!"

"Almost there", Emil said calmly.

"It's killing him!"

But Emil wasn't listening. He waited until the vial was completely full before withdrawing the needle.

"Good." he said more to himself. "He's going to be okay, Chloe." He looked at the machine that Clark was connected to. "His vitals are within range."

She ripped her gloves off and touched Clark's forehead. She used to be able to heal. She had been taken over by Brainiac, came out of it alive, and she still didn't know why she couldn't heal anymore. She didn't trust Emil's machine.

"We need to get on that jet right now." He told her

"No. I'm not leaving him here."

"I don't have time to prep all of the antidotes by myself", Emil insisted. "Thousands if not millions may be unknowingly affected. We have to get this into the water supply immediately. The sooner we do, the more people we can reach."

She stared at Clark for a second. She knew that leaving was the rational thing to do. The right call. Making the right decision was always difficult.

***Flash***

_"I spoke to Oliver- he's taking care of the details. We need to talk about what happened", Clark said after sitting down on the couch next to her. _

_"It wouldn't change what I did."_

_"But there's always another way", he told her. _

_"He could have killed you, Clark. I won't risk the safety of the world because of your code of ethics."_

***End Flash***

She turned her back on Clark, nodded to Emil, and left him alone at the Watchtower.


	14. Chapter 14

Again, Chapter Fourteen

She helped Emil work on the antidote, and then duplicating it in silence. She could hear her pulse echoing from her ears, and she kept looking at the clock. It got worse with every hour that passed.

Since the cab driver attacked her, she had an itching feeling that something had gone wrong with the pilot. She didn't think that the pilot would randomly attack them, but being tens of thousands of feet above the ground with the possibility of dropping suddenly wasn't helping matters.

From what she could deduce from the Luthor mansion cameras and Tess' medical records, it all started when she got bitten. That, along with Emil telling her that the virus was also airborne? Meant that she could be infected right now. She hadn't been sleeping- if she drifted off for a second, then everything would be destroyed.

Chloe kept inspecting herself whenever Emil wasn't paying attention to see if she had been bitten. There was nothing so far, but she was getting tired as time went by. She didn't want him to notice any changes in her behavior- he was already suspicious when she found the video feed disturbance. She had to keep going, and to make sure that Emil didn't suspect anything, she needed to do it without any caffeine.

The adrenaline kicked in when they finally finished preparing everything.

Emil was typing on a computer next to the stockpile of antidotes. She hovered, pretending to pay attention to what he was doing as she moved closer to a vial slipped it in her pocket, walking over to the computer next to his and sitting down at the chair.

She would inject herself right after this was done. And after they saved the city, she would simply get back to the Watchtower and continue her work after making a pot of coffee.

"Alright, the antidote has permeated the water supply and achieved its target concentration", Emil said, standing up and putting a hand on her chair.

"Well, that's great for the people who are taking a shower this morning, but what about the rest of us?" She asked

"Well, that's why we're seeding the atmosphere to release moisture. Deliver the virus in a knockout blow. We should be able to create a curative precipitation to blanket the city."

She hated that he knew more than her.

A masculine voice echoed throughout the plane. "We've reached our target coordinates. Prepare to launch."

So Oliver's pilot was still human. Good to know.

Emil looked at her before giving a nod. She returned her attention to the computer in front of her and released the antidote into the storm clouds.

"In the event that something goes wrong, I want you to know- your contributions have been appreciated."

She turned around to look at him. He was holding out a hand for her to shake.

Very formal- not friendly in the slightest. But this was his idea, his plan, unless he knew something that she didn't. It had been her program. This was all calculated, not random. There was no error in the plan.

"Nothing's going wrong."

He let out a chuckle. "Now I know why Oliver had such faith in you. He finally met someone who was a match for his confidence."

That was a compliment. Maybe she was wrong about Emil- maybe they could start working together without her wanting to strangle him and criticizing herself at the same time.

"Probably no surprise that you were the one to betray him", he finished.

...Or not.

Where did that come from? She didn't do anything that could even be considered close to betraying Oliver.

"Are you going to explain that not-so-subtle barb?" She asked, trying to control her anger

"Well, you've been tracking Oliver and the rest of his league, haven't you?"

The only way that he could have known that was if he took a look around the Watchtower while she was out retrieving the liquid Kryptonite.

She hadn't even been gone for a full hour, a mistake that she wouldn't be making again anytime soon. She didn't want Emil to start running around trying to track them all down before she did. It was her project, a solo project.

He probably couldn't wait for her to leave before poking around on her computers. She assumed that it was okay to not shut everything down password secure everything in the middle of a potential zombie apocalypse while she went out for half an hour to retrieve some liquid kryptonite.

"Apparently, you've made yourself more at home at Watchtower than I thought."

"May I ask why you're spying on him?"

So Emil wasn't going to apologize. Of course not.

None of them ever did. And because of that, Chloe wasn't going to either.

She had nothing to apologize for, anyway. She just wanted to make sure that they all stayed out of trouble. It wasn't as if she burst into the penthouse with a box of condoms in her hand making sure that there wasn't a baby Queen on the way. If the cop tried to shoot Oliver, then that would be a different story.

Maybe she was being a little overprotective. Maybe it was time that she backed off. But right now? It was her job. She would back off when they were all crime fighting together.

"The longer they stay separated, the more vulnerable they are." She told him.

"So you're protecting them?"

"Yes! Someone has to", she pointed out. "I don't know if you've noticed, but the people who are the worst at taking care of themselves are the ones the world actually need the most."

Emil was silent for a moment. "I assume...that no one else knows this."

She looked at him, and knew what right away what he was getting at. He meant Clark, and Chloe knew that had Emil really done his research, then he would know about the cameras in the Barn.

"No", she admitted. "It's my secret."

That didn't mean that she all of a sudden wanted Clark to know. She needed to stop talking about him, about all of this, and she knew that Emil would shut up if she swore him to secrecy.

It was funny- most people made Chloe swear up and down that she wouldn't say anything when she never intended on spilling any secrets in the first place. "Now the real question is, will you keep it?" She asked

"Well, I guess you'll just have to trust me."

She silently got up from her chair and excused herself to go to the bathroom before she could shoot back a retort. She knew better than Emil did that trust was earned.

From her experience, trust was a fickle thing. It could be granted through hard work and endless frustration, but with one or two really big mistakes, it was retracted quickly. Whipping up a couple of handy antidotes and filling the Watchtower with computers from Oliver's company was not hard work or endless frustration.

Chloe felt the frustration now as she pulled out her cell phone and stared at the screen. It was mostly out of habit that she checked it now, sometimes just to check the time, and others to check out Watchtower while she was away getting coffee.

She could tell from the clock that she hadn't slept in a little over three days now. But what frustrated her was the fact that there were no missed calls from anybody on the team. There was nothing from Clark on her call records or her texts other than the ones that she had sent. There was nothing from Oliver, Emil didn't seem to have been worried about her when she was late in getting the liquid kryptonite, and even though the world was going to hell, Lois had been completely silent as well.

She thought that she had friends all of these years, that the people that she worked with were the ones closest to her. But Victor and Bart were purposefully avoiding her and AC had to escape to Atlantis to get away from her.

She should have known that work was work. Don't make it too personal, Chloe. But if work was work and her personal life was her personal life, then what was her personal life? She didn't have anything. She thought that relationships were fluid- she started off with a friendship with Clark back in high school that became about work. And she started off working with Oliver, thinking that at one point, a friendship developed.

She didn't work at the Daily Planet anymore, so Lois wasn't labeled under work. In fact, Lois was related to her, they shared an apartment and some genes. But she hadn't said a word at all.

Chloe knew that she had a kryptonite encrusted heart. She just didn't expect that everyone in the world would respond to it.


	15. Chapter 15

Again, Chapter Fifteen

She woke up to the sunlight peering through the colored glass, shooting up from her chair to see something green resting on the touch screen. Chloe rubbed her neck and tried to straighten out her back, staring at it.

There were no cameras at Watchtower. It seemed like a bit of a strange idea, since she was the only one here, and a bit of a time waster to filter through feed of herself working. But by the looks of this, she should probably invest the time.

She wanted to know when Oliver Queen got here while she was sleeping for the few hours that she was knocked out on the desk and put his equipment on the desk before leaving. She wanted to know why it happened, she wanted to demand an explanation, and she wanted to slap herself in the face for being asleep when he showed up.

She got up from her chair, leaned over the table, and saw the rest of it. Crossbows, composite bows, compound bows, recurve bows, his quiver, trick arrows, titanium arrows, darts, glasses with night vision and video feed, voice distorter, knock out gas containers, six targets- he cleared out the Arrow room and placed it all here.

He should have woken her up, should have talked to her before landing her with an entire arsenal. What the hell was she supposed to do with all of this stuff now? Pick up archery? Fancy herself a little green uniform and start zip-lining around? Yeah, sure.

She walked over to one of the walls and pressed a button, opening a secret compartment where she held two guns. There was a lot of room left over- she was planning on maybe buying a change of clothes, maybe a blanket and pillow so that she could avoid future nights with her keyboard for company.

But that couldn't happen. She needed to clear this area out and make room for Oliver's equipment, maybe stash the targets upstairs somewhere. She only had two guns hanging here, after all. They could go somewhere else.

She had just finished carrying everything upstairs when her cell phone rang. She rushed down the stairs and picked it up without looking at it. "Hello?"

"Chloe, it's Clark. I need you to meet me somewhere."

"Is everything alright?"

"Yeah", she heard him say before bringing his voice down to a whisper. "I think I can hear thoughts now."

Another new super power. Right when she was about to crack the code on the video transmission gone awry. But she remembered him telling her about the time he unintentionally lit a classroom on fire because of a good looking teacher. She didn't think that hearing thoughts was dangerous, but with Clark, it just could be.

She didn't want him going upstairs and finding out that she had Oliver's stuff. So she did what she felt like she was just getting better at doing these days. She lied.

"I'm out on a coffee run. Can I meet up with you before I head back to Watchtower?"

"Sure, where are you?"

"I'm out on a coffee run", she repeated. There was only one place that she went for coffee recently, and it wasn't because she was hot for the barista.

She liked the sweet old guy. He was nice- always gave her a smile. Those were rare these days. "Metro Cafe", she said, hanging up on him and breaking in a run on her way out.

Even though her running was going to be helpless against Clark's super-speed, she still wanted to make sure that because of some miracle, she got there before he did, before he started asking questions and wondering why she lied.

If Emil had no problem with looking at her computers upstairs, then Clark would have no problem doing a quick inspection of the place.

But when Chloe got there, she found that it just had the usual strangers. She caught up her breath, ordered an ice coffee to cool down, and stood at the corner, sipping from it casually, waiting for him to speed in.

She was halfway done with her drink when she realized that she probably looked like she had just woken up. Her clothes were okay, but her makeup was light, probably slept away, and her hair wasn't curled for the first time in a while.

She saw him walking towards her, and wondered if he would even notice how tired she was. But he was walking- how human of him. So much for Clark Kent being dead.

"Chloe, thanks for meeting me. I know you've been busy."

Still all formal. That was what their relationship had come to now. She should probably take some comfort in the continuity.

Wait, could he hear her?

"What am I thinking right now?" She asked, her tone steady.

She missed them all. And she wanted the whole team back. AC hadn't visited since she had found him, hadn't even called to see what was going on. She wondered if the Watchtower was meant to be some sort of giant tribute to heroes that were, if that was why she had all of Oliver's equipment.

She didn't want Watchtower to become some sort of museum.

"No clue. So far it's only been Lois."

Lois. Of course. "Okay." She turned her back on him and started walking. Clark followed suit.

There had to be some sort of cause to the effect here. Just because she woke up as Lois Lane one morning didn't mean that random things happened. The cause was Zatanna back then. A wish.

What was the cause here?

"Well, I know that my Wall of Weird is so three upgrades ago, but I spent enough time digitizing the strange and unexplained enough in my life to know that you don't just catch ESP", she started. "So the question is, how do we know that this isn't just your super-hearing on the fritz?"

"As loud as Lois is, even she can't speak with her mouth closed."

"Good point." Maybe if she cross-referenced hearing thoughts with old Isis cases, she would be able to get in contact with someone, or at the very least, access some sort of file.

If Clark started his training, he was all chummy with Jor-El, then why was he coming to her with this? She was thankful for the update, but still wanted to know why. Jor-El would be easier.

"Okay, well, I'll see what I can dig up. But seriously Clark, unless your warranty's expired, why don't you just check in with your old dad?"

Suddenly, he put two fingers to his temple and started to wince. "Are you okay?" she asked "Clark?"

"Yeah. Looks like I have to bypass Lois' inside voice from here on out. I'm fine."

Why couldn't Clark hear her thoughts? Screw that, why couldn't he read her face?

"I'll keep you posted", she said, turning around and walking back towards the Watchtower.

He used to thank her, at the very least. Used to say something. Not anymore.

She went back to the Watchtower, cross-referenced ESP with every single meteor infected person and meta-human that she knew. She even cross-referenced it with Belle Reve patients, but came up completely empty.

She checked it against 33.1 rescues that the team had made over the years, but there was nothing. She asked herself for a split-second if Emil could come up with some brilliant scientific explanation for what was going on, and also wondered if Oliver had seen anybody before she had started helping him.

Some force of nature was taunting her. Arrows inside of her secret gun compartment that she had sealed with a secret pass-code. Her eyes kept darting back and forth from the wall to her monitor.

She wasn't going to get any sleep upstairs even if she tried if this kept going. She would just stare at the closet where she put a target if she managed to keep her eyes away from the ones on the floor up there.

She had this feeling that Oliver would know something. And if Oliver hadn't, Victor would. Or Bart would come up with some sort of name out of the air of someone that he had saved while running around. Or maybe Dinah had come across someone in her own bullpen.

Emil wasn't the only person in the world with scientific knowledge. This was ridiculous. Chloe was tired of feeling like a moron around here, with nobody else around here to judge her.

So she fit her laptop in her bag, slung her bag over her shoulder, went to the library, and took out book after book on random scientific subjects that could maybe hold some sort of scientific explanation for Clark's sudden ESP. Even though the spines of the books were digging into her arm with every second as she walked to the train station, she felt a little better.

She had Brainiac inside of her at one point. She could translate an entire kryptonian language because of that. She had hacked into government databases and made it out alive and being able to breathe fresh city air for longer than fifteen minutes at a time. She could make sense of this. She had to.

She spent the entire train ride back reading and got back to the Talon, and unlocked the door, ready to spend the rest of the night reading this without sound or taunting composite bows hidden behind walls.

She opened the door to find Lois busy doing something or another. And looking dressed up for a date. 

"Whoa, Lois!" She greeted, closing the door behind her. "Why so fancy?"

"Monster trucks", her cousin answered, still working away on the cloth laid out on the table.

Lois couldn't help but contain her smile. Monster trucks. Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

"Monster trucks", Chloe repeated, walking over to the table to put her books down and hoping that she wouldn't notice the titles. "Lois, I've seen you do monster trucks before, and this is definitely more than that."

Chloe turned the books around so that Lois couldn't read the spines. "I would say that this is strictly rhinestones and mudflaps territory." She reached into her bag and pulled out her laptop. "Who's the Prince Charming?" She asked

Lois put her scissors down for a moment and turned to face her. "I never thought I'd say this out loud, but Clark Kent."

Wait, what?

"I know, right?" Lois continued. "It's the weirdest thing. Of the five things to do in Kansas, Clark picked the one thing I've wanted to do for weeks!"

Oh no.

Using his abilities for his own personal gain. Wasn't that against the rulebooks or something? Use powers for the good of mankind, and not the good of the notches on the Barn's bedpost?

"We've been on the same wavelength, like, all day today", Lois finished.

"I'll bet." Now that Chloe had her suspicions, it was time to confirm them with some cold, hard facts. "Sort of like he's been reading your mind?" She asked. "Like he's hearing things you've never actually said out loud?"

Chloe smiled as Lois put on her hemmed shorts, making it seem like she was describing people in love instead of people who were using their handy dandy abilities.

"Exactly", Lois said, smile not even wavering.

"That is the weirdest thing", Chloe said sarcastically.

Lois didn't pick up on the sarcasm.

"Me and Clark", she tried the words on for size, thinking out loud. "I don't know. I mean, we certainly kick all kinds of ass at work, but lately?" She said, turning to face the mirror.

Chloe took a deep breath, her face contorted in worry. Lois was going to get her heart broken because Clark was being a moron and taking advantage of his abilities. He pretty much planted the idea of a relationship in Lois' head. It wasn't right. It's not how people go about doing things.

It wasn't humane.

"It just feels like we're more than just partners, you know?" She heard Lois say. "I think I've gotten used to carrying the load all by myself. What if I don't have to anymore?"

For a split second, Chloe missed that.

The J-Chlo team.

Chlo and Lo.

Chloe and Clark, best friends in their high school yearbook.

Chloe Sullivan, most likely to succeed. If only they could all see her now.

"Clark and Lois versus the world."

She wished that she could have it all back, but she couldn't. She was responsible for the deaths of two men and for the deaths of countless heroes.

Lois turned around to face her. Chloe instantly smiled widely at her.

"Oh, wow", Lois said suddenly. "Kind of lost myself somewhere there, huh?"

Chloe didn't know what to say, so she just smiled at her cousin, trying to seem supportive.

"Don't wait up", Lois said, giving her a quick one armed hug before leaving the apartment.

Chloe walked over to her laptop, flipping it open and entering her password when a window popped up.

There was a black-tie Queen Industries shareholder affair. Meant for lots of paparazzi. She wanted to crash the thing, get Oliver alone, and demand an explanation from him.

If he had to take his anger out on something, she would rather it be on her. She deserved it. But before that, she needed to get some sort of press pass to get in.

It would be easy to forge that at the Daily Planet- it would be late by the time she got all the way back to Metropolis, and since this was a Queen Industries affair, Luthorcorp was also involved. There was no chance of bumping into Tess Mercer and having her wonder why she was breaking into the building.

All Chloe had to do was stay low-key at the party itself and everything would be fine.

She checked the time. So much for a night of staying in and reading. She never should have left the Watchtower, save time in transit. "I really need to get a car", she muttered to herself before walking back over.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

She was at the Daily Planet, sitting at Lois' desk. A false press-pass was printed, and she was working on erasing her tracks on the computer so that her cousin wouldn't get into trouble with Luthorcorp's active CEO.

She powered down Lois' computer afterwards when her tired eyes drifted over to the nameplate across from the desk.

Clark Kent.

He could only hear the thoughts of Lois. One person, and he was already trying to manipulate their heads. Minds are supposed to be where thoughts are safe.

It's a good thing he couldn't hear what she was thinking or else

"Or else, what, Chloe?"

She turned around to see Clark in front of her.

Wait a second, he was supposed to be out on a date with Lois. Chloe was supposed to kick his ass about all of this later. So he screwed around with Lois' brain, and now he was going to stand her up?

She walked up to him quickly. If he wasn't an alien who couldn't be harmed physically without the presence of kryptonite, she would punch him in the face.

"Or else, I would have to tell you that I don't want you breaking my cousin's heart", she said roughly.

He looked at her, confused. Seriously?

"Clark, how was I supposed to react when I find out that you've been rifling through Lois' _brain_ like you lost your keys in there?"

He opened his mouth, about to say something, but she wasn't finished. Not yet. "You can't just trick someone into dating you."

"I didn't trick her into anything. And it's not a date."

Yeah, right. Try again. "You didn't see her when she left my apartment, Clark. Believe me, it was a date. And to add insult to injury, now you're standing her up?"

Clark looked down for a second. "No, I asked her out, not on a date, before I knew our bomber was an innocent man."

Lois mentioned something about a bomber on the go. Chloe didn't exactly get file about it. Or verbal full-disclosure. Clark barely mentioned it at all.

He handed her a copy of the Planet, and she read the front page. Toy Bomber Still at Large.

"Toyman's back", she muttered. Oh no. Oliver.

"Winslow Schott is responsible for the explosion in Oliver's building- that's why I didn't call Lois back. The last thing I need is for her to be following me into harm's way. Winslow's trying to smoke Oliver out of hiding. He's insane!"

_One more death's not going to make a difference._

"Yeah, he was crazy enough before Oliver framed him for Lex's murder", she said, thinking about all of the press that would be showing up tonight. "If he's trying to track Oliver down, he won't have a hard time doing it tonight."

She saw the confusion on Clark's face. The guy worked in a newsroom, how did he not know about the shareholder's meeting?

Then again, how did Watchtower not know that Toyman was back?

"Oliver's addressing his shareholders at your requisite, red carpet, black-tie, AOC gala."

"Alright, you head back to Watchtower." What? "If Winslow strikes again, we need to move fast."

He sped off before she could protest, and there wasn't much time for her to do much without a speed-assist anyway. Watchtower wasn't far from here, and the gala was a twenty minutes walk away. She slung her bag over her shoulder and started walking towards her computers.

She pushed open the double doors and got everything running in the blink of an eye. She reached for her com, and then realized that Clark was never officially a part of the team. She put the com away, and waited for something to happen.

Her phone rang, and she picked it up. "What's going on?"

"Chloe, my trials aren't over, I just got the training wheels taken away. I think Jor-El wants me to use what I've learned. Can you hack the security feeds of the building? He's got to be in here somewhere."

"I'm on it", she said, holding the phone with one hand before cradling the phone between her shoulder and ear. It was difficult to hack with only accessible hand. This was why she needed to get her hands on a bluetooth headset if Clark wasn't going to use a com.

Clark hung up on her, and she took the phone, setting it down next to the keyboard before breaking into Ace of Clubs security. There was an unclear voice coming from the computer, and she tried to make the quality better.

There wasn't much that she could do about the echoing of the audio, but she could see a clear picture. She could see Oliver sweating at the podium.

"My name is Oliver Queen", he said. "And I am a coward. I am a thief. And I am a..." He stopped abruptly.

Chloe walked over to another monitor, pulling up the security footage, running everything through an infrared scanning software. If there was someone hidden around the building, their body temperature would set off the scanner.

So far, there was nothing to track down the Toyman. But there was a crackling in the audio. Chloe walked over to her desk, pulled up the information on the first monitor, and expanded the visual image on the touch screen so that it projected on the wall.

There was something here. She froze the image of Oliver and zoomed in. She walked up to the screen and saw that he was wearing some sort of earpiece. She walked over to a third monitor and started typing. Someone was talking to him.

The earpiece was wireless, but that didn't make it a secure com link. It was phone call from a pre-paid phone.

The phone had a SIM card in order to activate the minutes, but she needed some sort of name in order to track it down. There needed to be something here.

She didn't know much about Toyman's past. Only that he used to work for Queen Industries, snapped under the pressure of the job, and got fired after hiding bombs in toys that he brought in.

There wasn't enough time to pull up a complete history on the man to see if she could find something that would create an alias. She needed to get in there somehow.

Her phone rang, and she picked up. "What?" She snapped

"Chloe, we need to get these people out of here now. Oliver's standing on a landmine."

She would bet money that the only two active calls in that room was her conversation with Clark's and Toyman's.

"Just give me one second", she said both to herself and Clark, as she clicked her way into the audio transmission.

"Confess!" She heard Toyman yell.

It echoed throughout the Watchtower, and Chloe walked over to another monitor and tried to hack into the computerized alarm, trick the heat sensors so that they would go off and the people could evacuate the building.

Access Denied.

Oh, come on.

She tried three more algorithms to get into the fire system before access was granted. All that was needed now was the heat sensors. She started typing, and within seconds, heard the alarms sound from her computers.

"The emergency alarm has been activated. Please move in an orderly fashion towards the nearest exit. Thank you."

But Chloe didn't even celebrate in getting into the system. Her eyes were focused on the projected screen on the wall, on the man in front of the podium who was frozen in place.

She saw Oliver looking at his feet for some reason. What was he doing? Why didn't he leave? As far as he was concerned, this place was going to erupt in flames at any given second.

Toyman did something to him, she could feel it. Toyman hadn't said anything else to him, but the transmission was still open.

She filtered the phone call through a software in Watchtower's database, and played it back.

She stopped when she heard Toyman telling him that he was standing on a bomb. From there, she was able to piece everything together. She heard Toyman telling him to confess, otherwise everyone in the room would die.

Toyman wanted to force Oliver to publicly confess that he had murdered Lex Luthor.

She watched the screen closely as Oliver let out a deep breath. Right before he stepped away from the pressure plate.

Nothing happened. Good job, Oliver. He called Toyman's bluff. It was risky, but fine.

Clark stepped back into the view of the camera, and walked up to Oliver. "How did you know that pressure plate wasn't real?" He asked

Oliver was frozen in place for a moment, took off the earpiece and let it drop to the floor. "I didn't."

"Oliver." Clark said, surprised.

"I waited until the last person got out, Clark. I knew the explosion wouldn't kill you."

What?

There was a clacking noise on the pavement as Chloe walked, but she couldn't hear it due to the constant pounding noise in her ears. She was a bit sad and confused back at Watchtower, but right now, that didn't matter.

She saw the taco stand in clear sight, and sped up her walking pace as she saw the man in front of her. She remembered tracking down the name of the place, tracking down the ownership records and filtering the name through Watchtower's database before she found a picture. This was the owner, and she needed to confront him while there weren't any civilians nearby. While he was still hanging around the front.

She walked right up to him as he was scribbling something down, and was able to confirm it while he was still writing.

Profile matched.

He looked up at her, and smiled. "What can I get you?"

She reached in her pocket and pulled out two pictures, sliding them across the stand. "You can tell me where to find them."

He looked at her in confusion before taking a look at the photos. Chloe looked at him closely as the confused look quickly turned to nervous.

The man slid the photos back over to her side of the counter. "I see a lot of people. I never recognize them."

She nodded, smiling. Liar.

She grabbed a gun from its holster with one hand, the man's shirt in the other and pulled him towards her before holding the gun firmly between his eyes. "I'll ask you again", she said, her voice even. "Where are they?"

"Listen lady, I own a goddamn taco stand. There are hundreds of people in here every day!"

It was true, and normally, she would have accepted it without a second thought. But she had a look at the video transmissions on the jet ride over, and that was when she found the pattern.

"Yes, but you recognize one of them, at the very least, don't you? He's here every day at exactly 3:45. No matter how busy you are, he's always here, and he's only here for three minutes flat before he leaves. Maybe he hands you a good tip so you'll keep your mouth shut, but he's always here."

"I don't know who he is! Please, I don't know his name!"

Oh, how quickly it goes from not recognizing anybody to not knowing a name.

"I'm not looking for his name. He would have just given you a fake one anyway. I'm not even looking for credit card information. He just gives you cash and disappears, am I right?"

"Yes", the man whimpered. "Always cash."

"Now, are you telling me the truth, or are you just telling me what I want to hear?" She asked, cocking the gun and pressing down on his face

"I swear on my dead mother, I'm telling you the truth."

"There's no need for that", she answered. "I have no way of even knowing right now if your mother is still alive. Does he come with a friend? Anybody at all? Look right there", she said, her head tilting downwards at the pictures on the counter. Her eyes never left the man, and her hands were gripping the gun steadily.

"He's always alone. Please, he just seemed like a good guy. If he's in any kind of trouble, I have nothing to do with it!"

But Chloe wanted to send a message. She wasn't done here yet. She looked over at the street camera that had been causing her so much trouble with transmissions. She kept the gun on the man's head, but let go of his shirt long enough to pull another gun out, cock it with her leg, and shoot the camera to kill the transmission.

The man closed his ears with the loud gunshots and Chloe focused her attention back on him. "What else do you know?" She demanded

She barely had time to register that she was in some random room with Victor on his laptop on the couch, Bart's hand still gripping her arm firmly before he dragged her to the side. "What were you doing back there?" he demanded

It was the first time that someone had made any personal contact with her in a long time. Other than the quick, formalized one-arm hugs from Lois before one of them left the door, and the warm, heartfelt glares that her and Clark exchanged from time to time when they thought that the other one wasn't looking.

She wanted to lie, to tell them that the man was never in any real danger. But the truth of the matter was that at this point, she was so desperate for the two of them to see her, to pull her away from the scene, that she wasn't entirely sure what she would have done if they had waited a couple of more minutes.

She wanted to break down and cry for once, to tell them that it was all her fault. But she didn't.

"Get off of me", she said roughly, pulling herself away from Bart. "I did what I needed to."

Victor closed the laptop that he was working on and put the computer to the side. "For what?" he asked. "The world going up in flames again? How nice to be invited."

"What?" She asked, whipping her head to the side to look at him.

"You can't just pick and choose, you know. We were supposed to be a team. I didn't even know that they found you. That there was even a plan. I didn't even know that someone had died until everyone else had come back from the funeral."

"Yeah, that was an awkward birthday party", Bart added. "But that's not the only point. You can't choose who to damage and who to leave behind."

Seriously? "Is this what you're pissed off about?" She asked Victor. "That you were left out of party? I didn't send you an e-vite? I will next time- it'll be in bold lettering. Let's all track down Chloe and Doomsday", she took a deep breath before continuing. "Kidnap them, and then see what happens!"

"You don't go against protocol", Victor told her. "At least, you never used to."

"Me?" She asked. "You guys went against protocol", she said. "I didn't run off to the side, and call you as the damsel in distress, telling you to save me. Clark did. And Clark went against protocol- I told him specifically to stop looking for me."

"You can't be serious", Bart and Victor said simultaneously.

"What?"

"We were going to look for you, Chloe, regardless of what you said", Bart told her.

She should have been flattered. She should have felt loved and cared for, but she wasn't. "Well, you shouldn't have."

Emotions were not the exception to protocol. She learned that the hard way when she ran away with Davis instead of finding a way to kill him.

"I knew what I was doing", she said loudly over the pounding noise in her ears. "I willingly left with Davis. I knew the risks and I took them. You guys", she continued, pointing first at Bart and then at Victor. "Had no idea. If anyone was going to die, it should have been me!" She exclaimed.

They both opened their mouths to say something, probably something to comfort her, but she cut them off. "No, you two shut up!" She shouted, taking a deep breath before continuing. "I knew what I was doing, and now the team's gone to hell. You two are running around, blocking transmissions, Aquaman's swimming around Atlantis, and Oliver"

She stopped for a split second as the image flooded her brain again, the pounding in her ears disappearing for a moment, being replaced by two words: I didn't.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and came back with her voice stronger. "And Oliver's running around drunk, sleeping with random women, and trying to kill himself. This wasn't in the plan. This wasn't supposed to happen. Nobody was supposed to die!"

"Chloe", Bart started, moving towards her. She knew what was going to happen next if she didn't stop it. There would be a pity hug, maybe some tears. And she was just tired of crying all of the time.

She wanted to move backwards, but didn't. There was a strange strength in her voice with what she said next. She turned to Victor. "Tell me where Dinah is."

"What?" Bart asked

"If I couldn't find her, and you're keeping Impulse here out of the camera", she started, making sure to use Bart's codename for formality. "Then you know where I can find Canary."

"I don't think she would want you to track her down."

"Fine", she said sternly. "Then you do it. I don't care if you have to follow her for hours, you find her and all of you show up at the Watchtower tomorrow night."

"The what?" Victor asked

"Bart knows where it is", she said, not even gesturing to the guy or moving her head to the side.

"You all show up 10:00 PM tomorrow at Watchtower or I'll track her down myself and knock you all out with my stun gun and fly you over. I don't care what it takes. Oliver Queen does not fucking kill himself, you hear me?"

They were frozen still, silent. She took it as a yes. "Good", she finished before leaving the hotel room and slamming the door behind her.

She pulled out her phone, found her own GPS coordinates, and found her own way back home.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

She dropped by the coffee shop for a refill before heading back to the Watchtower to try and calm her nerves a little bit.

She had the trail of the city that she wanted Oliver to go through, found a couple of Met U theatre students who were thrilled at being paid to run around and pretend to have government jobs for a screenplay she said she had written for them. They had their scripts, knew their lines, and understood that Oliver would only be making an appearance on the day, that Mr. Queen is a very busy man. There would be no second takes. No questions were asked, which for once was nice and easy.

Chloe had set up the warehouse that she wanted him to be trapped in, found an old source from the paper who had a friend at a trucking company who was willing to rent out some equipment to her for the day at a reasonable price, and made enough hype about a fake casino that it might as well have been real.

It had been a very busy day, and even though it looked like everything was under control, every detail planned and scripted on her computers, she still needed willing participants on the team to make it happen. She told them to all get together by 10:00 tonight, and it was 9:45 before she darted out of the Watchtower anxiously.

They all still felt betrayed because of Doomsday. She wouldn't have blamed them for coming in and killing her before she did any more damage. A couple of locks and fingerprint scanners could be easily broken by them.

She invited a handful of super-people over for a chat, and they all could easily decide to take it in another direction. She had a stun gun in her bag, two guns in her coat pockets, and some pepper-spray on her keychain, but she wasn't sure how effective they would be.

There was a device that Oliver had come up with a couple of years ago when Canary joined up that would allow them all to be unaffected by her cry. Chloe dug it up this morning just in case.

"Are you okay? You seem a bit off today."

She looked up at the sweet old man who was handing her the cup of coffee and smiled.

"Yeah", she said, accepting the cup and pulling some folded singles out of her pocket. "Just meeting up with some people I haven't seen in a long time. Not sure what to expect."

"I know how that is", the man said. "Sure that ice will be broken five minutes in."

"I sure hope so", she gave him the money. "Have a good night."

"You too", he said back as she headed out the door and started walking back to the Watchtower.

If they weren't coming, then she would have to track them all down, and she was sure that it would be more difficult this time. She would have to re-examine her approach, since the filters she was using for the street cameras around the world didn't seem to be working.

She taught them all how to be better at blending in, and now the kids were trying to use her own tricks against her. All it meant was that she would have to come up with new tricks.

She stepped into the elevator at 10:00 and loaded her guns, just in case. She made a mental note to replace Oliver's target later for when she got him back in the crime-fighting game. It was getting a little crowded with bullets these days, but at least she was able to sleep knowing that the gun she kept by her bedside wouldn't be used as a blunt object if she got attacked in the middle of the night.

She opened one of the double doors, and kept the other hand firmly on a gun in her pocket. She walked in, trying to keep an emotionless face as she saw them all in uniform and in front of her.

Bart and AC were smiling at her, so that had to be some sort of good sign. Victor was looking down at his feet, and Dinah looked like a stubborn child who had been reprimanded and dragged over here, arms crossed and avoiding eye contact.

"You're all here. Good." Chloe said, putting her bag, trying to forget about the thought in her head that was telling her that having everyone here was right, that as soon as they got Oliver back on his feet, they would all be where they were supposed to be.

That Clark told her that none of them didn't have a home, that Watchtower wasn't their home, and that seeing them all here proved otherwise.

She might have even smiled a little bit as she walked over to one of the monitors as she started typing, pulling up part one of her plan. Victoria was going to show up tomorrow- she was the only person who was going to be fully informed of the plan that Oliver would be interacting with.

Victoria was an old client from Isis that Chloe was able to track down once the jet touched back down in Metropolis. She agreed to get Oliver back on his feet, swore to keep his identity a secret, and hooked Chloe up with a couple of people with bartending and card dealing experience for the game that she was about to start.

"Before we get started with whatever you have planned, I want to make something clear."

She turned around and looked at Dinah. "Sure, what's up?"

"Chloe, we're not a team anymore. We've all gone separate ways, started our own lives in different parts of the country. We're not at your beck and call."

"I never wanted you guys to be involved in Doomsday." Chloe answered.

"Now. We're not at your beck and call now", Dinah corrected. "We came here because we owe Oliver- one last hurrah, paying back a debt. He met all of us in less than ordinary circumstances, and he gave us second chances. The least we can do is save him this one time."

She looked around at the rest of them, looking for someone to disagree with her, but nobody did. Of course they didn't come back to be a team again. What a ridiculously naïve thought.

She forced herself a crack at least half of a smile before turning back to the computer and typing. After all, what was the point in creating a plan if they weren't going to use it?

All business. No sarcastic valley girl tones asking if a wig made Dinah look washed out. No fish jokes that even AC laughed at a little bit, no comparing coding techniques and having discussions about new operating systems with Victor, and no random flowers super-sped from the other side of the world from Bart.

No real names, no first names. No laughing or small-talk. Just code-names and formality.

She swallowed, holding back the first word that came to mind in her first sentence. Trust. They didn't trust her anymore, and statistically, they had no reason to anymore. It was just number-crunching. It wasn't rational for Chloe to be mad.

"Believe", she started instead. "Believe me, as long as we follow the plan to the letter, Green Arrow will be running on rooftops again."

She pulled up one the files and loaded it up to the touchscreen on her desk before walking over to it and pushing it out to the projector on the wall.

"Blueprint of the city", she started as she took two fingers on the touch screen and expanded it before scrolling through the pages. "I have this part of the city blocked out from here", she marked a portion, "to here", she ran along a line so they could see the area they had to work with. "The most important thing is this- we need to make sure that he stays in this area. Otherwise there's a chance of getting the press and civilians involved."

"How are we going to do that? Pull him back if he gets too close?" Bart asked

"No", she said. "If he sees any of you on-site, he'll figure out what's going on. I have someone that he hasn't met who's going to be with him the whole time. I'll be connected with her the entire way, she knows her script backwards and forwards. If he gets close, she'll lead him in a different direction."

"Who is it?" Dinah asked

"Someone who's only coming for the encore", Chloe told her.

"You're bringing in a rookie to play with all of us? That's not going to work out. We've been working together for years."

There was nothing wrong with the plan- Canary was only here for a couple of added effects. Chloe pulled out one of the guns in her pocket and set it on the table, keeping her hand there. "You said it yourself- we're not a team anymore, right?"

"Whoa, no need to bring out the firearms", AC said, putting his hands up. "I'm sure whoever she found can get the job done."

"You're not going to kill me, Chloe", Dinah said. "I don't think you can. You need us."

"I don't need your arm, Canary", Chloe shot back. "Just your pretty little singing voice."

"What makes you think that you're getting it?"

"I can manage either way."

"Both of you, stop it", Victor said, as they both stared at each other, daring the other to act first.

"You weren't there", Dinah told him. "You didn't set off those explosives. No more casualties. I don't want some kid dying out there because we're unfamiliar with working with them."

"I was", Bart said, putting an arm around Dinah. "Mistakes happen, Canary. She screwed up once in three years."

They all went back and forth while she stood silent. She couldn't defend herself, there was only one argument that she could present and she already did in that hotel room. There was nothing more to say.

_Chloe, it's not working anymore. You're not working._

_It needs some work. But so did we. I just saw us here, you know? Taking something that the rest of the world had forgotten about and making it ours. _

Being here around them and watching them remind her was making her lose her mind. Chloe suddenly felt the need to leave here, to run away, to start again tomorrow, but she knew that if Oliver tried to kill himself before, he might try to do it again.

_Save me? There is nothing left to save!_

"We don't have time for this", she said over all of them. She walked up to one of the monitors, typed in something that would give them limited access to the computers for the files only relevant to saving Oliver, and turned around. "Look it over. I'm telling you that I'm doing this tomorrow night, so you can either help me and guarantee that Ollie will come out of this alive and back in the game, or you can sit back and watch as he kills himself. Game starts at 10 PM."

She walked out of the room and tried to stay as calm as she could before the elevator doors shut. The second it started moving, she pressed the stop button and sat on the floor and stopped fighting it. She wrapped her arms around her knees and closed her eyes.

_When Hades offered Persephone her chance of freedom, to everyone's surprise, Persephone chose to live underground with the dark prince. _

She remembered when they found her, how they automatically attacked Davis, and how she screamed not to, how they didn't understand, how she could save him.

She remembered when Brainiac took over, and her screaming for Clark to get it out of her. But he couldn't hear her. She begged him to make the pain stop, to make it go away.

_When Chloe and I were little girls, we made a promise- neither of us would get married until we found our soul mates, the one person in the whole wide world that we were destined to be with. Which is why you can't take a 10-year-old on their word._

She could still hear the sound of the pole skewering Jimmy's body, pulling back from the kiss, because it felt like he had frozen in place and something was wrong.

He didn't scream, but she heard the faltering breath, felt the pole brush against her own stomach. She knew that he didn't scream because he was trying to be strong.

_So, this whole time, that you were with me, it was for Clark? How could you do this? I loved you. You're the only one who ever loved me. Why? Why?!_

She opened her eyes and looked down at her hands. Through the tears, she could still see the stain of red on her hands and smell the ammonia from when she scrubbed the stain from the floor. So much for the ice being broken five minutes in.

She hated remembering it all, hated that she couldn't let it go or control her emotions. She hated that she was weak like this, that every time she promised herself that she would be strong and that she wouldn't cry anymore, she ended up crying alone.

Like she was some sort of self-deprecating pain addict who kept relapsing every time she was supposed to be strong. She couldn't even have a calm twenty minute debriefing with these people, couldn't have a two second conversation with Clark without analyzing every facial movement and wondering why he wasn't picking up on more.

She could never hold onto happiness long enough for it to stick, but she wasn't even looking for that anymore. She just wanted things to move on, to continue, for the verbal aggression to stop and be done with. For even the physical fighting to start so that she would have some way to defend herself, win, and then have it all be over.

She told herself that it would be once Oliver was safe, that getting him back on the horse would be taking care of the last part of all of this. The plan will have started already this time tomorrow, and by the end of the week it would be okay.

She took deep breaths to stop the tears and stood up strong and pulled out her cell phone and took a look at the screens that they were taking a look at. Victor was trying to hack into her personal system, but she made it Cyborg-proof.

Files on Davis from last year, Isis patients, and video footage of Tess Mercer. And files on everyone on the team- she hacked into Met Gen's database to get updated information on Emil to check up on him. This wasn't any business of theirs, it was her job. Making sure that everything was taken care of was something she had been doing for years.

Victor hadn't plugged himself into the system yet. There was no need for her to intervene and stop him, but she put the elevator back in service and went back up. "I'm assuming that you guys want in since you're perusing?" She asked

"Limited access isn't like you." Dinah told her.

"One last mission isn't like you guys either", Chloe shot back. "But here we are."

"It had to end sometime, Chloe", AC told her. "Lex is dead. 33.1 is over."

"We won", Bart said.

She went to her desk and pulled up the video footage of the underground cage that Oliver was in. She pushed play and watched Oliver get thrown to the floor and say that he would get up in a second before she cut it off. "Does that look like we won to you?"

"That's why we're here", Dinah said.

"Do you have any questions?" Chloe asked

"Glorified glass breaker, I've got it." Dinah told her.

"I have a question", Bart interrupted. "You want me and AC to hit Oliver with a truck? And you're trusting that I'll be able to pull him away from the car in time? Puts a lot of pressure on me not getting him killed, don't you think?"

"You're fast enough. You can handle it."

"Not without him seeing us", AC pointed out.

"Why not? It worked on me", Chloe said. "Just sneak up on him super-fast."

"Chloe…" Bart started.

"Apples to apples. The ability was there then, it's still there now. I trust you at any rate. Any other questions?"

"Why does it have to be tomorrow?" Victor asked

"Sooner is better", she said as she printed out copies of the plan detailed, lines that needed to be said and time stamps with when everything needed to be done. She walked over to the printer and handed copies to each of them. "Besides, what better day to bring him back to the land of the living than on his birthday?"

She was in her apartment setting up the program that would make it seem like Oliver's bank account was depleting. She was going to set it up remotely at the Watchtower, but she didn't want the rest of the team to know that she needed to pay for the bill for all of this when it was done. She used to access his bank accounts from his office when she needed it, and since it was only a handful of times, she didn't have the account number memorized yet.

Paying for window repairs for the buildings they were destroying today and paying all of the students who were helping her, not to mention tipping the pilot for getting her back and forth when she was trying to track down Bart and Victor was costing her a bit of money.

She didn't exactly want to send Oliver a bill when this was all over, especially since he didn't ask for any of this. It's not like he would notice a little money going missing anyway, and besides, this was part of her job. Taking care of things like this was her job and he never complained about it before. He didn't even notice when Emil took some money to fix up the Watchtower.

The program was going to hold onto the numbers and she'd get them back and be done with the whole thing. She had slipped the laptop into her bag and was about to leave for Metropolis again when Lois burst in.

"I cannot believe him. I cannot believe either of them!"

She folded the laptop bag down and checked the time quickly. Ten minute conversation, 2 hour train ride, quick coffee stop before the subway, and at that point Oliver will be in the secure building where the program will execute. Cutting it a bit close, but doable.

"Subject has re-entered the casino", Victor said in her earpiece. Good thing her hair's covering it.

"Okay", she said to both Victor and Lois, slipping the earpiece out of her ear quickly and covering it in her hand before turning back to Lois. "You're going to have to be a bit more specific with the who and the what."

"Do you remember the Queen Industries and Luthorcorp gala from, I don't know, last week?"

Not the right time span, but sure. "Yeah, what about it?"

"Oliver didn't know that the bomb had been diffused. He stepped off of the podium and tried to kill himself. And the worst part is that Clark was right there and neither one of them told me! Can you believe that?"

"I thought you had feelings for _Clark_", Chloe emphasized.

"Oliver and I are still friends. I can't believe that he didn't come to me about it. And that Clark would just lie to me about it. And his excuse was that he was trying to protect him."

Chloe blinked, trying to think of something to say back, and for a split second, she could have sworn she saw Davis covered in a pool of kryptonite.

"I don't think it's something that people like to share with the world", Chloe tried.

"I want to help him, but he's not answering my phone calls. Smallville and I had to break into his office to try and find him and we found the footage instead."

"Why did you break into his office?" Chloe asked

"Because of the tradition that we've had for the past couple of years on his birthday. We share a pack of beer, bond a little bit, have a good time."

Which, knowing Lois and knowing Oliver, meant that they'd share multiple packs of beer, bond a little bit, slip into bed, and have a good time. Explained why the team always jetted out of town on a new mission the next morning.

Nice.

"What about Clark?"

"What? No, it's been friendly and platonic since last year. But I'm still pissed off with Clark for not telling me. I'll kick his ass once I find Oliver and kick his ass."

"I wouldn't be too mad, Lois. You _have_ been incredibly busy over the past couple of months. Paper's running you a bit ragged."

"Well, if Tess and I keep up this firing and rehiring crap, I have to at least prove that I'm worth it. And besides, I haven't been too busy for you and Clark."

Correction- Lois hasn't been too busy for Clark. End of story.

Chloe was paying rent from Jimmy's life-insurance check, she paid for the funeral by selling her car, and she once spent the morning unconscious in what turned out to be Atlantis before magically getting back to Metropolis in time for lunch. She wouldn't have told Lois about the underwater kingdom part, but she would have mentioned that Jimmy and Davis were dead if Lois hadn't been focusing on The Blur.

If Lois had even mentioned that the parking space next to her car was empty now, she would have told her.

She looked at her watch. Ten minutes were up, and Chloe was heading towards the door to leave. "Sorry, Lois, I've got to go."

"That's it?" Lois asked. "I told you that Oliver tried to kill himself and Clark didn't tell me and you have to go."

Funny, it didn't seem to be a problem when Lois did it.

"It wasn't a problem when I found you in the hospital a couple of months back. It's going to have to wait, right?"

"What are you talking about?"

Okay. Fine, Lois. Want to do this now? Fine.

"I told you that I had to drop a bomb on you and instead of sticking around to listen, you run off to meet The Blur, a perfect stranger, over your cousin. I ghost-wrote stories while you were gone, called the police every day, and searched for you like my life depended on it. A big reason as to why Tess decided to keep you around was probably because it looked like you had never been fired. But you didn't even ask me later what it was. Never did."

Chloe took a breath and continued. "You've been so wrapped up in your life and in Clark that you didn't even notice that something was going on at that charity ball. The one that you crashed to one-up Clark. Do you remember that? You were there, Lois. You were there that night. But you want to know who's not here, Lois? Jimmy. And Davis. You want to know why they're not here? Because they killed each other. Do you think that you've been here for me now?"

Lois stepped forward. "Chloe, I'm sorry"

Chloe pulled back before she could give the pity hug. "-Don't expect to be kept in the loop if you're not actually interested. Oliver's had countless girlfriends and flings, you think all of them are up to date with everything he does?"

"I'm not like all of his other exes, Chloe. It sounds weird, but I know a lot of things about Oliver that nobody else does. He should have come to me."

Chloe was going over her allotted time just having this conversation. She was going to have to wait an extra five minutes to get the next train. She didn't have time to do this beating around the bush with the whole 'I know Oliver's secret and I think you don't but you know it too and we're just not talking about it' thing.

"He doesn't need your permission to end his life, Lois. And standing around here talking about it isn't going to change anything. Oliver's fine, I'm taking care of it."

She opened the door.

"What are you talking about?" Lois asked "How are you taking care of it?"

"That doesn't concern you", Chloe told her. "And don't bother following me. They might tell you at the Planet that you're worth your salt, but you're not that good."

She left without another word and hired a taxi to gun it to Metropolis- a cab-fare that left her wincing, but she didn't want to risk the mission by asking Bart to come pick her up from Smallville, something that she regretted when she found Impulse just hanging around the Watchtower, eyeing the security cameras as Roulette and Oliver ran through the streets.

"Cutting it kind of close", he remarked. "Is the laptop ready?"

She ignored the comment and pulled out the computer, slipping the earpiece back in her ear. "Here."

"Back in a flash", Bart said before speeding out.

"What's with the whole back in a flash thing?" She asked out-loud

Victor opened up the bookcase where he had been working behind and poked his head out. "He's hoping that it'll stick as a new nickname. He's been using it for a month now. Hasn't worked yet. He's still mad that he didn't get to pick his own nickname."

She studied the security camera and watched as Roulette faked her death and the fake police surrounded them. "You're going to have to pop back in there when the program executes. I think Clark's catching on, trying to find him. I've got a counter-mission to keep him distracted, but if he finds Oliver, this'll be the first place he takes him."

"No problem. Impulse will have to drop Victoria off here when Clark leaves, unless you want Clark in?"

"No."

"Does he know what we're doing?"

"No." She didn't go any farther than that. It wasn't necessary to the mission.

Victor looked around awkwardly. "Okay then."

"Watchtower, looks like Boy Scout's heading your way with Arrow." Impulse came through the earpiece.

"That's my cue", Victor said, hiding back behind the bookcase.

She barely had time to change the screens from the security cameras to her database when the double doors opened. Oliver looked beaten up, but he was still in one piece. Thankfully the stun gun that he had been hit with was on low voltage and the guns were loaded with blanks.

She had gotten good at lying to them- Chloe played her part, ran a fake search with a story that Victoria had come up with as the results instead of her Isis foundation files. She thought that she was good at anticipating what Oliver was going to do during this mission- the script back in the dark warehouse was executed perfectly with what he said. But Oliver wanted her to fetch his gear for him.

Probably to use an arrow designed to kill instead of the trick arrows that he normally used to knock out civilians and guards. She didn't go along with it, but she was worried about what this would mean, whether he would be able to come back from this instead of committing another murder.

He wasn't too happy about that, and Clark almost went after him when Oliver used the old nickname on him on the way out, but Chloe was able to stop him with the counter-mission. The woman that she found on the video feed wasn't made up, the counter-mission was real, but she found the footage days ago.

She had been saving it, keeping it from Clark until she needed to use it to distract him, to make sure that he wasn't involved. She fed him the story and sent him on his way before telling Bart that it was okay to come back with Victoria.

Impulse sped in alone and Victor came back out of the room.

"What happened? Where's Roulette?" She asked

"We have a bit of an issue in the plan." Bart tried

"What is it?"

"Lois- she's sneaking around the casino looking for Oliver. She's near his car."

Damn it. Why did she have to get involved?

"Watchtower to Roulette, what's your status?" She spoke into the com.

"She's at the car right now. Want me to take the joker out of the deck?" Victoria asked

She liked Victoria, she did. But she was making way too many card game references. "Play out the hand", Chloe told her. "She'll try to fight you to get in, but you can handle her. Take her as a hostage and use her to get to Oliver when he comes around."

"Chloe, this isn't part of the plan", Bart told her. "She's your cousin."

"Lois is going to be fine."

"Oliver has guns in his office and car. It sounded like he wants to kill Victoria. This could be bad." Victor said.

"This is just Plan B", Chloe said. "Roulette, there's a computer activated fire in the next room of the Casino. You'll try to set the whole place on fire, pretend to be stuck, and Oliver will rescue you."

"He won't do it if there's a hostage." Victoria said. "He'll shoot me first."

"Gun's loaded with blanks", Chloe told her. "Don't worry."

"Got it", Victoria told her.

"Someone talk some sense into her", Bart said into his com.

"It's a weird plan, but Oliver didn't get hit with the truck. Highest chance of a screw-up, I think that one was it." AC said

"Which ones did you get?" Dinah asked

"Car and Office", Chloe said.

"Glove compartment?" Dinah asked

"Yes."

"Trunk?"

"Yes."

"Back seat?"

"Yes. Don't you think Roulette would work better without the extra chatter?"

"Target secured", Victoria said.

"Good. Thanks, Roulette", Chloe spoke.

"Office drawer?" Dinah continued

"Yes."

"Did you take his arrows?"

"Sounds like he gave her all of his Green Arrow equipment." Victor said.

"Really?" Bart interrupted. "All of it?"

"Yeah, it was all here one day. I didn't see him."

"Sounds like she's clear", AC said.

"Here he comes", Victoria said into the com.

Bart sped in AC and Dinah and they watched on the wall as Oliver talked to Roulette. She knew that the second he tried to shoot the gun, he would realize that it was all a set-up, and even though she wanted desperately for him to know that it was her, it would be too soon if he figured it out before saving Victoria.

There was a lot of chatter between Oliver and Victoria before the gunfire started.

"Roulette, you better make sure he's not injured", Chloe told her. "I don't want a bullet even grazing him. Understand? Nod your head for yes."

She looked at the video feed as the woman nodded her head. Good.

"So, how do I know that this isn't just another part of your game?" She heard Oliver ask

Victoria raised her gun in the air and shot the ceiling three times to emphasize that maybe he was onto something. But it didn't seem like he caught the hint. "Right", he answered.

"Let him figure it out for himself." She instructed as Roulette ran out of bullets. "Get over to Lois. He won't try anything around her. You'll be safe. Impulse- activate the gas and get out of there. Make sure nobody sees you."

"Got it." She heard over the earpiece.

Lois was shouting something muffled. "Shoot her."

"Here's our moment of truth", Chloe said.

"Strangely enough, I'm not in the mood for popcorn." Dinah said

"We'll put on the fake names and get girly drinks later", Chloe answered with a smile, trying to hide the shaking in her hands and voice.

She ignored the cold vibe she was suddenly feeling from Canary. That's right, this was a one-time thing. They weren't even colleagues. She swallowed the lump in her throat and kept staring at the screen.

"She knows I won't- not if there's a chance I'd hit you", Oliver told Lois.

"Screw the drinks. If this doesn't work, we're going to have to drag him to AA meetings for billionaires kicking and screaming", AC pointed out.

"If this doesn't work, we're going to have to drag him out of a fire kicking and screaming." Dinah said.

Victoria fake-screamed for help and Chloe watched as Oliver looked at Lois and then looked at where Roulette was supposedly trapped.

"Positive thinking", Bart said as he sped in. "He's okay so far. Let's see what happens."

She felt her face sweating profusely and her heart beating uncontrollably, yet time was slowing down almost painfully. It happened though- Oliver let Lois go and ran over to Roulette.

"Where is he?" AC asked

Chloe didn't think that it was going to work, but it did. Oliver went off and played the goddamn hero like she knew that he was going to. She was so shocked that she forgot to change the screen. "Oh, I can do that", she said, typing on the keyboard and changing the camera image.

Victoria repeated the words that Chloe wrote. "Why did you come? You could have left me here. After everything I put you through, no one would blame you."

She knew everything that Roulette was saying, orchestrated it all herself. She had a visual of what she hoped that Oliver would say back so that she could plan everything. But what she didn't expect was what happened next. "I don't care what you did or who you are. I'm going to get you the hell out of here, alright? I'm not going to let you die."

She felt the words apply to her. It didn't make sense, but she felt the words address her.

"Well, I'll be damned", Dinah told her. "It worked."

She had the entire team back. But they weren't here to stay. Hollow victory. "Yeah", Chloe said quietly. "Thank you, everyone, for your help. I'll let you get back to your lives now."

She thought for a split second that someone would stop her from going up the stairs, but nothing happened as she climbed the flight and shut the door behind her.

She had been working towards this, and now that Oliver was back and everyone else was tracked down, what else was she going to do? Just keep an eye on Tess Mercer and deal with whatever weekly emergencies Clark came up with, if she was lucky enough to be included?

Chloe woke up the next day and pretended to have an average life. She put on a gray suit and a pair of heels, as if she was going to work somewhere. She styled her hair and put on some makeup before heading out to get a copy of the morning paper and a cup of coffee.

This was normal. This is what people did most mornings instead of checking video footage around the world and eating cold noodles.

One leg was crossed over the other and she sat outside holding the coffee in one hand and the paper in the other. She didn't pay attention to the traffic cameras or the people passing by.

And then something rested on the table, breaking her focus. Her eyes went to the white chess piece that was there- a queen.

"Nicely played."

He wasn't mad at her?

She looked up and saw Oliver standing over her before he walked to the seat across from her and sat down.

He was tormented on the screen on that podium, terrified in all of the footage from yesterday. He looked okay now- a little cut up, a bit tired, but himself.

"I started asking myself who knew about Lex, about Toyman, the things I had given up, what I tried to do", he started. "Then it all occurred to me. Dinah shattered the glass in the warehouse, Bart rescued me from the car, Victor faked the computers, and Watchtower kept an eye on the whole thing, right?"

She smiled a little bit as he rattled off their first names. It felt like old times, like the past hadn't happened and the rest of them weren't battle-scarred. Like they weren't their abilities, that they were part of a family.

She wanted to be cold, to act emotionless and brush him off. But the way he was speaking to her now was like when she would help the team with information before.

_I don't care what you did or who you are. I'm going to get you the hell out of here, alright? I'm not going to let you die._

Her and Oliver were on the same page. She saved him. She was starting to wonder if maybe he needed to kill her to make things right after all.

"You were living like you had a death wish, Oliver", she started. "You had to face your demons if you were ever going to make it out alive and I had to push you over the ledge in order to pull you back."

"Did you have to push with a three-ton truck?"

They were the same concerns that the team had, but she didn't feel annoyed when Oliver brought it up. It was risky, having a truck hit him and having Bart run in and save him at the last minute. But it worked, just like all of the 33.1 plans. They all seemed crazy before they went in, but they trusted each other to make it happen and it did for the most part.

She leaned forward. "I didn't think a tricycle would be a strong enough point. You're a fighter, Oliver. You fought for yourself and for a second chance."

He nodded. "Chloe, I'm not the only one you put at risk."

She let out a laugh. The actors were hired and she knew ahead of time that she would be paying for damages. They weren't exactly informed that a replica of Lex's grave was going to be brought in for Oliver to deal with. Everything was okay. "If you're worried about our little club and Lex, don't be. I played my cards close to my chest."

"And Lois was what? She was just another ace up your sleeve?" He asked

"No, I never meant for her to get involved. She was chasing after you when she accidentally ended up storming the field. That's when Victoria went off-script."

"I could have killed her."

She was mad at Lois, but she was never going to let anybody shoot her. "No offense to your manhood, but I made sure that your gun was loaded with blanks, just in case."

He gave her a smile- almost like he expected it.

"I trust you, Oliver", she said honestly, bringing the cup to her lips again. "Just…not that much", she finished, taking a sip. She barely trusted herself to make sure that she could do her job. Since everyone left, it had been hard to do any more than that.

"Did Clark know about this?"

If everyone else on the team was going on and on about how dangerous the plan was, she could only imagine how much Clark would be against everything from the beginning if he knew. He had been keeping Chloe at an arm's length since he came back, and she was just returning the favor.

"You can't be serious", she let out. "Clark would never in a million years risk what needed to be done."

She waited for Oliver to tell her that it was the wrong method, that she could have come up with something safer. But that's not what came next.

"Well, he's led a different life than we have, hasn't he?" He started, eyes drifting off to the side as Chloe studied him. "I can't expect him to know me like you do. The places that I had sunk to, the depths that you must have had to go to bring me back? Thank you." He finished with soft thanks, almost a whisper.

Chloe felt a genuine smile creep up on her face, something that wasn't just victorious or something that she plastered on when other people were around for effect. He understood.

"You proved it to yourself", she insisted, almost not believing that this was the same man who was backing away from what he thought to be a loaded platform just days ago. "Even with your face in the gutter, you still had the hero in your heart."

He reached across the table and grabbed her hand. "You saved my life, Chloe. Both the myth and the man."

She smiled at him again and was silent for a moment before clearing her throat. "So, what's next? Are you going to start patrolling again or ease your way back into it?"

"I want to get right back into it", he told her. "Which is the main point of my coming here. I dropped by Watchtower to pick up my gear and talk to you, but it was empty and I couldn't find it anywhere."

"That's actually my fault", she said, putting the chess piece in her pocket as she got up and tossed the Styrofoam cup in the trash. "I locked it up at Watchtower for safekeeping."

They were silent on the short walk back until they reached the building. "You don't have to start right away if you don't want to", she told him as the elevator doors closed. "I don't want you to push yourself too hard."

"Trust me, I've had enough of a vacation. It's time to get back to work."

She opened the double doors, almost expecting to see the entire team back in front of her, but it was empty like it always was.

"Chloe?" He prompted. "You okay?"

She looked back at him. "Yeah", she said softly. "I'm fine." She refocused on a part of the wall, pushing the side of it until a keypad was revealed. "There you go."

"What's the password?" He asked

"It's Laura."

There was a silence between the two of them for a moment and Chloe started to feel very nervous and stupid for using his dead mother's name for a passcode. She customized it so that it would be five digits instead of four or six.

He spun around and pulled her close to him in a warm hug. The hand holding and this hug- it was the first time in a long time that she had let anybody close enough to physically touch her. She didn't want their pity, but that didn't seem to be what Oliver was doing.

He wasn't apologizing for not being there before and he wasn't holding her to comfort her. He was thankful for what she did, he forgave her for destroying everything.

Her eyes welled up with tears and even though she tried to pull away from Oliver, he grabbed her closer.

"You really never gave up on me, did you?" She heard him ask

She understood what he meant in between the lines- like the others did.

"_This is where I belong", she said to him, pressing the remote and opening up the control center of the Isis Foundation._

Last year on her birthday, he was there for her to hear her when everybody else was busy, even if it was only for a couple of minutes. And even though this year it was his birthday, he was still here to understand the unspoken words.

"No", she whispered, only pulling back when she was sure that the tears wouldn't spill down. "And I never will."


End file.
